THE  CONTRAST 


REPUBLICAN  and  DEMOCRATIC 

ADMINISTRATIONS 

Reviewed  and  Contrasted. 


Wilful  misrepresentation  is  worse  than 
downright  lying.  The  former,  if  skillfully 
manipulated,  is  calculated  to  deceive,  "while 
the  latter  often  carries  with  it  its  own  an- 


“tee  national  expenses. 


tidote— the  evidences  of  its  own  falsity. 

For  the  past  fifteen  years  the  policy  of  the 
Democratic  party  has  been  to  systemati¬ 
cally  misrepresent,  in  every  possible  way, 
the  men  and  measures  of  the  Republican 
party.  The  official  reports  of  the  several 
departments  have  been  garbled,  and  Re¬ 
publican  measures  falsely  stated,  all  as  a 
means  of  exciting  prejudices  and  keeping 
alive  the  spirit  of  sectional  animosity.  The 
short-comings  of  a  few  officials  have  been 
gTeatly  magnified,  and,  where  losses  have 
been  recovered  by  the  prompt  prosecution 
oi  bondsmen,  the  fact  has  been  carefully 
concealed. 

In  a  word,  the  opposition  has  abandoned 
the  field  of  honorable  discussion,  and  adop¬ 
ted  the  mode  of  guerilla  warfare,  striking 
in  the  dark,  using  any  and  every  means  or 
weapon  within  reach,  actuated  by  no  hivher 
principle — no  grander  motive — than  to  de¬ 
stroy  Republicanism,  and  thus  again  to  get 
control  of  the  “spoils5’  of  Government 
!  Anything  to  beat  the  Republican  <partv” 
3S  the  battle-cry  of  Democracy. 

The  latest  and  most  unprincipled  docu¬ 
ment  yet  issued  against  the  Republican 
party  is  a  pamphlet  entitled,  “  Which  Partly 
can  wo  Trust?”  Itannignsthe  Administra¬ 
tion  for  corruption,  tyranny,  and  general 
mismanagement,  and  garbles  recklessly 
the  pubhc  records  in  its  efforts  to  shake 
riie  public  confidence  in  Republican  offi¬ 
cials.  Rut  the  following  exposure  of  its 
true  character  the  proofs  of  its  systematic 
falsehood  and  fraud  in  its  pretended  state¬ 
ment  of  the  Republican  record,  with  a  brief 
review  of  Democratic  maladministration 
corruption  and  crime  from  its  rise  under 
Jackson  to  its  faff  under  Buchanan,  and 
its  attempted  resurrection  under  Andrew 
Johnson,  will  warn  the  country  of  its  pur- 


This  is  the  first  heading  under  which  the 
pamphlet  arraigns  the  Republican  party 
and  its  administration  of  public  affairs’ 
and  for  the  purpose  of  comparison — of  ex¬ 
posing  the  relative  cost  to  the  nation  of  Re¬ 
publicanism  and  Democracy — assumes,  as 
standards  of  comparison,  “the  last  six: 
years  (from  1856  to  June  30,  1861)  of  Dem¬ 
ocratic  rule, and  “the  last  six  years  (from 
18  »0  to  1875)  of  Republican  administra¬ 
tion.  5  It  calls  the  latter  period,  “the  six 
years  of  Grant’s  rule.” 

But  where  were  the  Republicans  dur¬ 
ing  those  “last  six  years  of  Democratic 
rule?”  Did  they  not  constitute  the 
majority  of  the  House,  having  control 
of  its  committees,  scrutinizing  and  purg¬ 
ing  the  estimates  ef  the  Democratic  ex¬ 
ecutives  of  much  of  the  wholesale  corrup¬ 
tion  and  fraud  which  rioter!  throughout 
every  branch  of  the  public  sendee? 
And  did  not  tliat  majority  perform  its 
duty,  faithfully  and  skillfully,  in  despite  the 
fearful  obloquy  daily  heaped  upon  it  by 
the  Democratic  press  for  its  resistance  to 
Rxecutives  so  lawless  and  corrupt  as  Frank 
Pierce  and  J  ames  Buchanan — for  its  efforts 
to  confine  them  within  the  legitimate  ex¬ 
penses  of  “  henest  ’  ’  government,  and  to 
purge  the  State,  as  far  as  possible,  of  tlieir 
maladministration  and  corruption.  In 
all  their  crimes,  too,  during  those  “last  six 
years  of  Democratic  misrule” — in  all  their 
complicated  corruptions,  malpractices, 
despotic  usurpations,  and  lawless,  saimuin- 
ary  tyranny— Pierce  and  Buchanan°  had 
the  active  and  zealous  co-operation  and 
support  of  a  Democratic  Senate  ! 

If,  therefore,  any  great  honor  or  public 
virtue  attaches  to  the  comparative  econo- 
my  of  those  “  last  six  years  of  Democratic 
rule,  .  achieved  as  it  was  by  the  Republi¬ 
cans,  in  the  face  of  a  Democratic  hostility 
so  f  ormidable  and  violent,  it  belongs  mainly 
to  Republicanism— it  vindicates  its  legisia- 
i  tn  e  honest;/,  the  iitcgrity  of  its  repr ese-ufes* 
tive  men ! 


\ 


The  following  is  the  pamphlet’s  com¬ 
parative  statement  of  the  aggregate  ex¬ 
penditures  of  the  respective  periods  and' 
their  annual  averages  : 


“Last  six  year’s  of 

“Six  years  of  Grant’s 

Democratic  rule.” 

rule.” 

1856.  .  . 

$65,476,297.99 

•1870.  .  . 

$136,081,301*88 

1857  .  .  . 

64,730,763.12 

1871.  .  . 

123,139,932.70 

1858.  .  . 

71,120.668.87 

1872  .  .  . 

124,668,463.12 

1859.  .  . 

65,133.727.36 

1873.  .  . 

151,129,210.04 

i860.  .  . 

58,955,952.39 

1874.  .  . 

165,080,570.34 

1861  .  .  . 

61,581,456.65 

1875.  .  . 

142,073,632.05 

Total . 

386,998,866  38 

Total . 

842,173,103.54 

Ann.  av. 

64,499,811  06 

Ann.  av. 

140,362,183.92 

Or  under  Grant,  as  claimed, an 

excess,  in  six  years,  of .  .  .  $455, 174,237. IS 

* 

—  ■■■  ■  1  ■' 

And  an  average  annual  ex¬ 
cess  of .  $75,862,372.86 


But  the  following  are  nearer  the  true 
figures,  deducting  expenses  incident  to  the 
Democratic  rebellion  : 


“  Last  six  years  of 
Democratic  rule.” 

“Six  years  of  Grant’s 
rule.” 

1856  . $72,948,792.02 

1857  .  70,822,724.85 

1858  .  81,585,667.76 

1859  .  83,751,511.57 

1860  .  77,462,102.72 

1861  .  84.103,105.17 

1870  . *$76,204,846.09 

1871  .  78,223,784.21 

1872  .  90,197,370.62 

1873  .  99,909,352.14 

1874  .  .  .  111,002,314.08 

1875  .  87,059,678.12 

Total.  .  .  .  470,673,904.09 

Total.  .  .  .  542,597,345.26 

Ann.  av.  .  .  78,445,650.70 

Ann.  av.  .  .  90,432,890.88 

©r  under  Grant  an  excess  in  the 
aggregate  of  six  years  of  only  $71,923,441  17 

Instead  of . .  .  455,174,237  16 

as  charged  in  table  “A.” 

And  an  annual  average  excess 

.  of  only .  11,987,240  18 

Instead  of .  75,862,372  86 

as  charged  in  table  “A.” 


*The  following  are  the  items  deducted  for 
1870,  and  similar  items  f ortho  several  subse¬ 
quent  years,  from  the  net  ordinary  expendi¬ 
tures  of  the  year,  including  pensions  and  in¬ 
terest  on  public  debt : 


Interest  on  the  Public  Debt .  .  $129,235,498.00 
Premiums  on  Purchase  of  Bonds  15,996,555.60 

Pensions,  (army) .  28,340,202.17 

Pensions,  (navy) .  476,328.84 

Bounties  to  soldiers .  17,106,504.39 

Collecting,  drilling  and  oi’ganiz- 

ing  volunteers,  Ac .  2,311,324.85 

Expenses  of  National  Loan  .  .  .  2*c73, 700.61 

Refunding  excess  of  deposits  for 

unascertained  duties .  1,835,375.45 

Cost  of  Bureau  of  Engraving  and 

Printing .  1,600,000.00 

Freedmen’s  Bureau .  1,449,694.71 

Assessing  and  collecting  Interaal 

Revenue .  8,891,586.91 

Reimbursing  States  for  raising 

volunteers . ' .  1,291,303.32  j 

Debentures  and  drawbacks  under 

Customs  laws .  S23, 419,54  j 

National  Asylum  far  Disabled 
Soldiers. ...........  v  .  801,988.20 


Now,  the  arraignment  in  table  “A”  is  an 
old  strategem  of  the  Democracy,  but  one 
resorted  to  so  often  as  to  have  lost  all  its 
novelty.  A  brief  history  will  explain  it. 

The  voice  of  the  Democracy  was  ever 
for  war — “open  war” — so  long  as  the 
prostitution  of  the  blood  and  treasure  of 
the  nation  in  wars  of  conquest  increased, 
advanced,  or  strengthened  the  power  of 
slavery.  It  eulogized  the  wars  and  war¬ 
riors,  claiming  all  the  glory  for  the  De¬ 
mocracy,  while  repudiating  all  responsi¬ 
bility  for  the  obligations  they  inflicted 
upon  the  nation.  It  claimed  all  the  glory 
of  the  war  of  1812  with  England,  denoun¬ 
cing  all  as  traitors  who  opposed  it ;  but 
in  1828*  it  denounced  the  administration 
of  John  Q.  Adams  for  the  payment  of 
a  large  proportion  of  the  debt  that 
war  created :  even  in  the  language 
of  the  pamphlet  under  consideration 
denounced  the  consequent  increase  in 
the  annual  expenditures  as  evidence  of 
administrative  extravagance,  corruption, 
and  fraud.  But  the  most  disreputable 
instance  of  this  trickery  occurred  during 
the  administration  of  Millard  Fillmore. 
The  Mexican  War,  in  1846,  which  cost  the 
nation  the  lives  of 25,000  of  its  citizens — as 
many  wounded — some  of  them  maimed  for 
life — and  hundreds  of  millions  of  treasure, 
was  peculiarly  a  Democratic  war,  inflicted 
upon  the  nation  by  the  usurpation  of  the 
war  power  by  James  K.  Polk,  at  the  dicta¬ 
tion  of  the  Proslavery  Propaganda.  It 
claimed  all  the  glory  of  the  war,  the 
renown  acquired  by  the  gallantry  aud 


Refunding  proceeds  of  captured 
and  abandoned  property  ....  472,128.02 

Prize  money .  423,923.82 

Expenses  under  reconstruction  385,957.34 

Hospital  (Naval)  Fund .  239,093.00 

Distributive  shares  of  fines, pen¬ 
alties,  and  forfeitures  .  237, 796. S6 

Refunding  duties  erroneously  or 

illegaly  collected .  226,699.S7 

Horses  and  other  property  lost  in 

service .  201, 072.  S4 

Payment  under  relief  acts  .  .".  .  144,131.13 

Capture-  of  Jeff  Davis .  80,782.12 

Naval  Asylum .  48,753.00 

Bounty,  &c.,  to  seamen  • .  47,610.48 

Defending  suits  for  captured  and 

abandoned  property .  40,823.62 

Washington  and  Oregon  volun¬ 
teers,  &c .  44,108.83 

Fire  per  cent,  fund  to  States.  .  .  35,537.29 

National  Cemeteries .  84,355.50 

Refunding  excees  of  deposits  for 

surveying  public  lands .  28,120.19 

Payment  to  Texas  creditors  .  .  .  20,782.87 

Repayment  df  lands  erroneously 

sold .  19,629.97 

Proceeds  swamp  lands  to  States  9,255.76 

Unclaimed  merehandise .  8,847.13 

Relief  of  colored  women  and 

children .  7,972.00 

Refunding  moneys  erroneously 
covered .  2,932.49 


Total,  $215,692,985.52,  which  deducted  from 
$309,652,560.75,  the  aggregate  net  expenditures: 
of  yoar,  including  debt  and  pensions,  leaves 
$93,960,575.23,  which,  reduced  to  gold,  =$76,204,- 
846.09. 

*See  debate  in  House  of  Representative^ 
upon.*  3lj\  Chilton’s  (of  Kentucky)  resold 
lions,  in  a*******  1828-’29. 


3 


skill  of  our  arms,  the  popular  eclat  at¬ 
tending  the  extension  of  the  boundaries  of 
the  Republic,  but  repudiated  all  the  finan¬ 
cial  burdens  that  it  created.  Hence,  | 
at  the  close  of  Mr.  Fillmore’s  administra- 1 
tion,  just  before  the  presidential  election 
of  1852,  Mr. Hunter,  of  Virginia,  chairman 
of  the  Senate  Finance  Committee,  and  Sen¬ 
ator  Gwinn,  of  California,  taking  the 
•“Finance  Reports”  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  and  charging  against  the 
administration  the  liabilities  growing  out 
of  the  Mexican  war,  which  greatly  swelled 
the  annual  expenses,  denounced  the  con¬ 
sequent  apparent  increase  in  current  ex¬ 
penses  as  evidence  of  misrule,  extrava¬ 
gance,  corruption,  and  fraud. 

They  arraigned  Mr.  Fillmore ,  as  Gen' l 
Grant  is  now  arraigned ,  for  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  their  own  Democratic  crimes .* 

But  Senator  Pearce,  of  Maryland,  in  re¬ 
ply,  taking  tlieir  arraignment,  with  the 
official  reports,  and  separating  and  deduct-  j 
ing  from  the  legitimate  items  of  current 
expenditure  those  which,  directly  and  in¬ 
cidentally,  grew  out  of  the  Mexican  war,  ( 
exposed  Hunter’s  and  Gwinn’s  trick — 
convicted  them  of  iniquitoisly  charging 
against  Mr.  Fillmore  the  expenses  which 
attended  the  liquidation  of  the  burdens  in¬ 
flicted  upon  the  nation  by  Democratic 
crime !  That  is  also  the  trick  of  the  fore¬ 
going  table  ‘  ‘A.  ’  ’  In  it  is  a  showing,  pretend- 
edly,  of  the  comparative  ‘  ‘expenses  of  the 
Government’  ’  during  the  two  periods — the 
relative  cost  to  the, nation  of  Republican 
and  Democratic  rule — and  “the  increase  | 
beyond  all  necessity”  in  the  Republican  as  ; 
compared  with  the  Democratic  period.  It 
nevertheless  with  characteristic  dishonesty  j 
strikes  from  the  Democratic  period  all  the 
liabilities  growing  out  of  the  Mexican 
war,  thus  reducing  greatly  the  aggre- 
S&te  and  annual  average  of  the  Demo-  ■ 
dfatic  period;  but  the  figures  charged 
to  “Giant’s  rule”  are  as  enigmatical  as 
the  Cabala.  Whence  come  they  ?  Noth¬ 
ing  hi  the  official  Finance  Reports  warrant 
or  explain  them  upon  any  theory  suggested 
by  the  pamphlet.  Besides,  the  figures  of 
the  Democratic  period  are  given  upon  a 
gold  basis,  while  those  of  the  Republican 
are  given  upon  that  of  a  paper  currency. 
But  the  statements  of  table  “B”are  nearer 
the  actual  relative  amounts.  Restoring  to 
the  Democratic  period  the  amounts  elimi¬ 
nated  by  the  pamphlet,  then  deducting  from 
the  Republican  period  the  liabilities  in¬ 
curred  directly  in  consequence  of  the  Dem¬ 
ocratic  rebellion,  and  reducing  the  several 
totals  to  the  gold  standard  of  their  respec¬ 
tive  dates,  ( J  line  30  of  the  different  years,  as 
in  statement  “B,”)  an  approximate  of  the 
relative  cost  of  the  two  periods  will  be  seen, 
but  only  an  approximate,  for  the  total  of 
the  Republican  period  will  still  be  greatly  j 
in  excess  of  the  exact  amount,  from  the  . 
fact  that  all  the  rebellion  liabilities  do 

*  See  iiebate  in  Senate  - 


not  appear  in  detail  in  the  Finance  Re¬ 
ports,  but  many  of  them  are  included  in 
aggregates  under  general  headings. 

But  even  these  figures  of  “  Grant’s 
rule,”  besides  embracing  necessarily,  as 
explained  above,  heavy  items  flowing  direct¬ 
ly  from  the  Rebellion,  include  all  the  extra¬ 
ordinary  expenditures  for  harbor  and  river 
improvements,  for  forts  and  fortifications, 
the  erection  of  new  buildings  for  the  State, 
War  and  Navy  Departments,  and  other 
similar  items — most  of  them  expenditures 
for  permanent  works  of  valuable  improve¬ 
ments  intended  to  last,  not  merely  through 
“Grant’s  rule,”  but  through  generations, 
and  aggregating  in  the  Finance  Reports  for 
“the  six  years  from  1870  to  1875,” 
$99,716,594.37.  If  we  deduct  these  ex¬ 
traordinary  from  the  current  expenditures 
of  “Grant’s  rule,”  the  aggregate  for  the 
period  will  he  $442,880,750.89,  instead  of 
$8^2,173,103.54,  as  charged  in  table  “A," 
and  $27,793,153.20  less  than  the  aggregate 
of  the  ulast  six  years  of  Democratic  rule:" 
the  annual  average  of  “ Grant's  period" 
will  be  $73,813,458.48,  instead  of  $140,3 62,- 
1S3.92,  as  charged  in  table  “ A,"  and 
$4,632,192.22  less  than  the  annual  average 
of  i(the  last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule." 

But  the  time  statement  of  Democratic 
cost  to  the  nation,  the  only  one  from  which 
the  people  may  approximately  realize  the 
appalling  magnitude  of  even  the  financial 
consequences  of  Democratic  rule,  is  the 
following,  which  shows,  in  comparison 
with  the  period  from  1856  to  1861,  the  net 
ordinary  expenditures  of  the  last  six  years, 
including  pensions  and  the  interest  on  the 
public  debt,  every  dollar  of  which,  out¬ 
side  of  the  current  expenses  for  the  actual 
machinery  of  Government,  is  directly 
or  indirectly  chargeable  to  Democratic 
rebellion  and  misrule : 


Expenditures  from 
1856  to  1861. 


Expenditures  from 
1870  to  1875. 


1S56  . 

1857  . 

1858  . 

1859  . 

1860  . 
1861  . 


A<rcr 
00  •  • 

An.  av. 


$72, 948, 792.02  1870.  . 
70,822,724.85  1871  . 
81,585,667.761872  . 
83,751,511.57  1873  . 
77.462,102.72  1874  . 
84,103,105.17  1875  . 


$309,653,560.75 

292,177,188.25 

277,517,962.67 

290,345,245.33 

287.133.S73.17 

274,623,392.84 


470, 673, 904.09. Agg  .  .  .  1,731,451,223.01 


78,445,650.70  An.  av  .  .  2SS,575,203.S4 


Thus,  in  consequence  of  Democratic  Re¬ 
bellion  and  misrule,  the  expen¬ 
ditures  of  the  nation  have  been 
increased  in  the  aggregate,  in 
the  last  six  years,  as  compared 
with  the  former  period ....  $1,260,777,318.92 
And  the  annual  average  of  ex¬ 
penditures  from  the  same  infa¬ 
mous  causes,  has  been  increas¬ 
ed . $210,129,553.15 


To  the  above  must  also  be  added  t.he  thoi*- 
sands  of  millions  of  our  present  debt,  and  the 
prodigious  sums  of  that  debt  already  paid. 


It'should  always  be  borne-  in  mind  that 
r.-  j deducted. 


4 


* 


as  explained  above,  from  “Grant’s  rule,” 
were  all  disbursed  under  the  engineers  of 
the  army  and  navy,  against  the  integrity  of 
whom  as  a  class  not  even  this  Democratic 
pamphlet  dares  to  insinuate  a  word,  and 
leaves  charged  against  the  administration 
all  the  heavy  items,  also  extraordinary 
expenses,  for  improvements  in  the  Dis¬ 
trict  of  Columbia,  and  under  which  the 
pamphlet,  in  its  vague  and  general  way, 
charges  without  the  corroboration  of  a  single 
specific  fact,  all  manner  of  corruption,  fraud, 
and  rings;  and  also  includes  the  expendi¬ 
tures  attending  the  necsesarily  heavy  in¬ 
crease  in  the  personnel  and  material 
of  the  army  and  navy,  the  increased 
expenditures  for  the  new  Indian  service, 
and  those  of  all  of  the  executive  depart¬ 
ments — aggregating  many  millions. 

Are  administrative  triumphs  so  grand  as 
these  evidences  of  systematic  extra  vaganoe, 
corruption  and  fraud  ?  If  they  are— if,  there¬ 
fore,  extravagance,  corruption,  and  fraud 
exist  under  “Grant’s  rale” — what,  in  the 
name  of  all  that  is  honest  and  pure,  must 
have  been  their  monstrous  character  and 
degree  under  the  larger  figures  of  Demo¬ 
cratic  rule,  with  an  army  and  navy,  in 
personnel  and  material  and  contingents, 
greatly  less  than  now,  and  an  executive 
service  in  all  its  departments,  in  clerical 
force  and  contingents,  comparatively  small. 

“  THE  ARMY.  ” 

The  Army  furnishes  the  next  count  in 
the  indictment.  The  pamphlet  states  that 
the  aggregate  “cost  of  the  War  Depart¬ 
ment  from  1856  to  1861 — during  the  last 
six  years  of  Democratic  rule — accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Treasury  reports,  was  $124,-. 
3.80,000,  being  $20,721,000  a  year,”  but 
that  “during  Grant’s  six  years  the  cost 
has  been  $258, 585, 000,  being  over  $43,000,- 
000  a  year,  or  more  than  twice  as  much 
as  under  Democratic  rale.”  This  in¬ 
crease  it  attributes  to  the  “  corruptions, 
frequent  defalcations  and  frauds  of 
the  paymaster’s,  quartermaster’s  and 
commissary’s  departments,  the  multi¬ 
plicity  of  officers,  and  the  employment  of 
troops  for  partisan  purposes  as  troops  are 
used  in  monarchical  countries  to  uphold ! 
the  ruling  dynasty.”  But  where  are  these  | 
defalcations  and  frauds  ?  The  only  guilty  ; 
officer  named,  and  he  in  its  list  of  “defal-  i 
cations  and  frauds,”  is  “  Paymaster  j 
Hodge,”  a  life-long  Democrat,  who  was  , 
sent  by  the  Republicans  to  the  Albany 
penitentiary  for  embezzling  $445,000. 
And  did  not  his  defalcation  occur  under 
the  administration  of  the  Pay  Depart- , 
ment  by  another  Democrat — Paymaster ; 
General  B.  W.  Brice  ? 

The  impression  the  pamphlet  labors  to 
convey  is,  that  this  cost  of  the  De¬ 
partment  is  wholly  absorbed  in  the  pay 
or  expenses^f  the  army.  It  says :  ‘  ‘  Mark 
it:  The  cost  of  the  army  under  Grant  is 
oeo  ooo  a  year  more  f\rw  under  the' 


Democrats.”  But  what  are  the  facts?' 
Besides  the  pay  proper  of  the  army, 
and  the  expenses  entering  into  its 
cost,  in  the  Finance  Deports,  are  the  fol¬ 
lowing  items,  (mainly  originating  in  the 
Rebellion,)  and  all  extraordinary  expen¬ 
ditures  outside  of  the  military,  but  which 
are  charged  against  the  War  Deparraent 
as  paid  of  its  cost  during  “the  six  years 
of  Grant’s  rule 


Bounties . *  $  44,310,946.93 

Harbor  and  river  improvements  32,117,868.75 

Fords  and  fortifications .  8,775,264.29 

Reimbursing  Kentucky  and 
other  States  for  war  expenses..  6,712,394.86 
Claims  of  loyal  citizens  for  sup¬ 
plies  during  rebellion .  2,506,363.40 

Freedmen’s  Bureau .  2,385,917.52 

Relief  bills .  1,419,564.73 

Signal  service . over  1,000,000.00 

Horses  &c.,  lost  in  service  ....  618,990.03 

Reconstruction  expenses .  381,384.80 

National  cemeteries .  .  338,214.26 

Capture  of  Jei£.  Davis .  82,394.62 

Washington  and  Oregon  vols.  in  60,312.77 

1855-'56 . . 

Publication  of  Rebellion  record.  20,000.00 


Total  $100,729,616.96 


which,  deducted  from  $258,585,000,  would 
leave  the  aggregate  cost  of  the  War  De¬ 
partment  for  “the  six  years  of  Grant’s- 
rale,”  at  $157,855,383.04,  being  an  annual 
average  of  only  $26,309,230.50,  (instead  of 
$43,000,000,)  which,  reduced  to  a  gold 
standard,  is  but  little  in  excess  of  the  an¬ 
nual  average  of  the  “last  six  years  of 
Democratic  rale,  ’  ’  although  embracing  the 
necessarily  heavy  increase  in  the  personnel 
and  material  of  the  army  and  its  con¬ 
tingents.  “But  the  annual  military  ex¬ 
penses  of  the  government,  ”  during  those 
4  ‘  last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule,  ’  ’  wotfld 
have  been  “$4,000,000”  in  gold  “higher 
if  the  Republican  party  had  not  voted 
down  the  demand  of  the  (Democratic) 
President  for  the  increase  of  the  standing 
army  by  the  addition  of  four  more  regi¬ 
ments  of  regulars,  each  to  cost  $1,000,000 
a  year.  ”*  Slavery  demanded  it:  the  Demo¬ 
cracy  hastened  to  obey. 

And  if  the  use  of  troops  for  partisan 
purposes — as  a  means  of  “upholding 
the  ruling  dynasty” — be  criminal,  then  are 
the  Democracy  notoriously  and  infamously 
guilty  !  Has  the  pamphleteer  forgotten 
the  incidents  of  the  sanguinary  and  law¬ 
less  military  tyranny  under  Pierce  and 
Buchanan  during  those  ‘  ‘last  six  years  of 
Democratic  rale  ?”  Has  he  forgotten  the 
‘  ‘bloody  code’  ’  of  Kansas,  enacted  and  en¬ 
forced  in  crime  by  the  Democracy,  sustain¬ 
ed  by  the  military  under  the  satraps  of 
tyrannicalDemocraticPresidents,  but  which 
was  too  infamous  for  ratification  by  even  a 
Democratic  Senate  ?  Has  he  forgotten  the 
“border  ruffian”  “reign  of  terror,  ”  sup¬ 
ported  by  tke  army,  by  which  Kansas  was 
turned  into  a  field  of  blood — the  dispersion 
of  its  legislatures  at  the  point  of  the  bayo- 

*See  “Reports  of  Covorte  and  other  Commit¬ 
tees,”  p.  24. 


5 


•net — the  military  arrests,  fines,  imprison¬ 
mnent,  and  hanging  of  its  free  citizens, 
amid' ruined  homes  and  burning  towns  and 
villages — all  directly  for  a  “partisan  pur¬ 
pose” — to  “uphold  the  ruling  Democratic 
■dynasty,  ’  ’  and  of  extending,  consolidating, 
and  perpetuating  the  crushing  despotism 
of  domestic  slavery  ?  Has  he  forgotten  all 
this  “employment  of  troops  for  partisan 
purposes  ?’  ’  Or  the  military  raids  into  our 
cities,  the  “dragooning”  of  their  citizens, 
in  pursuit  of  fugitive  slaves,  by  Democratic 
Presidents,  under  the  influence  of  slavery, 
and  in  violation  of  the  Constitution — of 
•every  right  of  the  citizen  and  of  the  States? 
Has  he  forgotten  the  murderous  scenes  in 
Washington,  the  Capital  of  the  nation,  on 
“Bloody  Monday,”  the  reckless  slaughter 
in  cold  blood  on  its  streets  of  its  unoffend¬ 
ing  citizens  by  the  military,  at  the  com¬ 
mand  of  James  Buchanan,  to  gratify  the 
malice,  the  malignity  of  a  Democra  tic  can¬ 
didate  for  the  petty  local  position  of  Al¬ 
derman  ?  Has  he  forgotten  the  ordering 
to  Baltimore,  by  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Gen. 
Grant,  and  the  military,  not  at  the  request 
of  the  legislature  of  the  State,  as  required 
by  the  Constitution,  but  at  that  of  its 
Democratic  Governor,  nor  for  the  sup¬ 
pression  of  any  “domestic  insurrection” 
actually  existing,  but  in  support  of  its 
petty  Democratic  Board  of  City  Police, 
and  in  anticipation  of  the  resistance  to  be 
provoked  by  its  tyranny,  usurpation, 
and  fraud?  The  peonle  have  not. 

“the  navy.” 

Under  this  heading  the  pamphlet  draws 
a  “long,  long  bow.”  It  manifestly  bases 
its  statements  wholly  upon  the  belief  that 
the  people  are  utterly  ignorant  of  the  facts, 
and  it  proposes  to  keep  them  so.  It  says 
that,  “according  to  the  official  reports,  the 
cost  of  the  navy  in  its  palmy  days  of  phys¬ 
ical  strength  and  moral  power — the  last 
six  years  of  Democratic  rule — was  $79,403,- 
000,  or  $13,233,000  a  year;”  but  that,  “dur¬ 
ing  Grant’s  six  years,  the  cost  of  the  navy 
has  been  $138,417,000,  or  $23,069,000  a 
year.”  It  enters  next  its  stupid,  stereo¬ 
typed  charges  of  “incompetency,  profli¬ 
gacy,  and  corruption,”  but,  as  in  every 
other  case,  without  a  single  specific  fact  to 
sustain  them. 

Hence,  if  we  strike  from  the  above  state¬ 
ment,  as  in  the  case  of  the  army,  the  ex¬ 
traordinary  from  the  current  expenses, 
which  aggregate  in  the  Finance  Reports 
$56,322,392.22,  and  reduce  the  totals  of 
the  two  periods  to  a  common  standard  of 
paper  or  gold — the  actual  increase  of  the 
Grant  period  will  be  found  but  little  in  ex¬ 
cess  of  the  “last  six  years  of  Democratic 
rule,  ’  ’  although,  as  in  the  army,  the  figures 
of  the  “Grant  period”  will  embrace  the  ex¬ 
penses  for  the  necessarily  heavy  increase  in 
personnel  and  material  of  the  navy  and 
lbs  contingents. 

But  its  slander  of  the  heroic  men  of  our 


fleets  is  atrocious.  In  contrasting  the  navy 
now  with  what  it  calls  its  “palmy  days  of 
physical  strength  and  moral  power — the 
last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule” — it  says: 
“In  former  times — always  before  the  Re¬ 
publicans  came  into  powen' — the  navy  was 
the  pride  and  boast  of  the  country  ;  its 
gallantry,  its  efficiency,  and  eminent  ser¬ 
vices  were  universally  commended,”  but 
now  “it  lias  sunk  to  be  a  shame  at  home 
and  a  by-word  and  scandal  abroad.”  * 

But  when  before  in  the  history  of  the 
nation  was  the  navy  a  greater  ‘  ‘  pride’  ’  or 
“boast,”  when  was  its  “efficiency,”  “gal¬ 
lantry,”  or  “services”  more  “universally 
commended,”  more  “eminent”  or  greater 
than  under  the  Republicans?  Who  gave 
to  the  nation  Farragut?  Who  Porter, 
Foote,  and  Dalilgren?  Who  Dupont, 
Boggs,  and  Worden?  Who  the  hosts  of 
gallant  seamen,  whose  splendid  victories 
during  the  rebellion  at  New  Orleans  and 
Mobile,  at  Charleston,  Fort  Fisher,  in 
the  Chesapeake,  and  on  the  waters  of  the 
Mississippi  carried  the  renown  of  the  navy 
to  a  height  unsurpassed  in  the  history 
of  the  world  ?  Who  but  the  Republicans? 
When,  too,  was  its  morale  or  gallantry 
more  eminent  than  now  ?  And  what  has 
the  pamphlet’s  “palmy  days  of  its  physical 
strength  and  moral  power — the  last  six  . 
years  of  Democratic  rule” — to  offset  a 
“gallantly”  and  “efficiency”  or  “ser¬ 
vices,”  so  “  eminent”  or  glorious  ?  What 
was  the  “pride”  and  “boast”  of  those 
“palmy  days?”  Why  literally  nothing 
but  the  bombardment  and  burning,  by 
the  sloop-of-war  Cyane,  “without the  loss 
of  a  single  man  on  either  side,  ’  ’  of  Grey- 
town,  in  Nicaragua,  a  defenceless  village 
controlled  by  its  own  countrymen! 

The  pamphlet  next  declares  that  “the 
country  was  recently  forced  to  submit  to 
insult  from  poor,  weak,  distracted  Spam  !” 
What  insult?  Was  forcing  Spain  to  accept 
the  terms  demanded  by  Grant  an  insult  to 
this  country?  The  pamphlet  here  is  guilty 
of  a  little  anachronism.  Spain,  now,  is  one 
of  the  great  naval  powers  of  the  world, 
but  hi  those  “palmy  days”  it  was  truly 
“poor,  weak,  distracted  Spain,”  its  naval 
power  as  contemptible  as  its  military;  but 
in  those  “last  six  years  of  Democratic 
rule,  ’  ’  did  not  Spain,  and  with  impunity,  in¬ 
sult  this  nation,  firing  upon  our  flag,  stop¬ 
ping  in  its  ports  our  vessels,  (the  Black 
Warrior  and  Crescent  City,)  and  seizing 
their  cargoes,  ga noting  Pierce’s  agents, 
(Pinto  and  Estrampes,)  imprisoning  our 
seamen,  and  insulting  our  citizens  travel¬ 
ling  hi  Cuba  with  them  wives  and  daugh¬ 
ters.  compelling  them  to  halt  and  alight, 
and  kneel  in  the  dust  before  waxen  im¬ 
ages  held  by  mulatto  priests  !* 

But  its  eulogy  of  the  navy  even  in  those 
“palmy  days”  is  simply  a  characteristic 
weapon  of  fraud  upon  the  public.  The  navy 

♦Carroll’s  Review  of  Pierce’s  Administra* 
tion,  p.  54. 


6 


was  never  a  favorite  with  the  Democracy. 
The  army  was  the  southern  pet — the  rebel 
Democratic  44 pride  ”  and  “boast.”  Hence, 
early  in  the  history  of  4  4  the  party,  ’ 5  in 
1839,  in  the  “Globe,”  its  national  organ, 
in  articles  supposed  to  be  written  by  the 
Secretary,  the  navy  was  denounced  for  “a 
total  want  of  that  esprit  du  corps,  without 
which  there  can  be  nothing  high  or  enno¬ 
bling  in  the  profession  of  arms,  ’  ’  coupled 
with  the  indignant  complaint  that  “  it  is 
impossible  to  make  heroes  of  men  who 
adopt  the  maxims  and  principles  of  Gob¬ 
blers  and  tinkers  !”  That  of  the  navy! 
Was  it  then  “a  pride  and  boast?”  Again, 
even  in  those  “palmy  days,  the  last  six 
years  of  Democratic  rule,”  the  “Naval 
Retiring  Board,  ’  ’  according  to  an  author¬ 
ity  at  hand,  and  which  denounces  its  acts 
as  “most  atrocious,”  “wounded  the  honor 
and  inflicted  disgrace  and  poverty  upon 
the  gallant  men  of  the  navy  and  their  suf¬ 
fering  families.”  It  adds:  “More  than 
five  hundred  families  have  been  most  se¬ 
riously  injured  by  this  unparalleled  tyran¬ 
ny  of  Franklin  Pierce  and  Secretary  Dob¬ 
bin  !”*  Was  the  navy  then  “a  pride  and 
boast?”  Yet  those  were  the  “palmy 
days” — “the  last  six  years  of  Democratic 
rule !” 

The  pamphlet  next  charges  that  “the 
employment  of  the  navy  yards  for  corrupt 
party  purposes  is  one  of  the  most  notori¬ 
ous  of  the  scandals  of  the  age  of  Grant- 
ism  !”  Again  its  disreputable  old  trick — 
the  charging  upon  its  opponents  the  noto¬ 
rious  crimes  of  Democracy  !  Go  back  to 
its  very  origin — to  the  earliest  real  inves¬ 
tigation  into  its  4 4  incompetency,  profligacy, 
and  corruption  ” — to  the  report  of  the  cele¬ 
brated  Harlan  committee  of  1839,  and 
read  in  the  paper  of  the  Democratic 
minority  a  defence  of  the  system  out  of 
which  grew  this  very  “  scandal  of  the  age 
ofGrantism,”  exposed  by  the  committee 
as  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  Democracy 
even  at  that  early  period — a  defence 
directly  of  political  assessments  upon 
office-holders  for  “corrupt  party  pur¬ 
poses.”!  Unknown,  unheard  of  before  in  ■ 
the  history  of  party,  both  of  those  party 
malpractices,  both  of  those  vile  sources  of 
Democratic  oppression  and  fraud,  had 
their  origin  with  the  Democracy,  amid 
corruption  and  maladministration  without 
a  parallel  before  or  since,  and  were  con-  . 
tinued  by  it  whenever  in  power,  ever  in¬ 
creasing  hi  iniquity  and  degree,  as  demon¬ 
strated  by  the  CovodeJ  investigation  of 
I860,  up  to  the  close  of  those  “last  six 
years  of  Democratic  rule !”  Renewed 
again,  under  their  new  lease  of  power, 
through  the  treachery  of  Andrew  John¬ 
son,  it,  in  the  campaign  of  1868,  pro- 

*See  Carroll’s  Review  of  Pierce’s  Adminis¬ 
tration,  pp.  112, 113. 

fSee  Report  of  Com.,  No.  313,  3d  Sess.,  25th 
Cong. 

JSee  the  Covode  investigation,  H.  R.  No. 
G48, 1st  Sess,  36th  Cong. 


posed  to  carry  this  “  soamdal  ”  to  a  degree 
never  before  reached,  as  was  evidenced  by 
the  false  estimates  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  of  the  preceding  session.  What  was 
then  aggregate?  Not  “$23,000,000,”  as 
complained  of  by  the  pamphlet  as  evidence 
of  “incompetency,  profligacy,  and  corrup¬ 
tion,”  but  $40,000,000  !!! 

Those  estimates,  bearing  their  fraud 
upon  their  face,  were  quietly  returned  by 
the  Republican  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means  to  the  Secretary  for  revision,  when 
he  again  sent  them  to  Congress  reduced 
to  $20,000,000,  thus  confessing  a  prodi¬ 
gious  fraud,  a  deliberate  crime,  before 
which,  in  comparison,  Belknap’s,  as  vile 
as  it  is,  sinks  into  a  mere  bagatelle.  A 
Republican  Congress  still  further  reduced 
them  to  $17,300,000  ! 

These  malpractices,  therefore,  “  the  em¬ 
ployment  of  the  navy  yards  for  party  pur¬ 
poses  ’  ’  and  4  4  political  assessments,  ’  ’  if 
criminal  and  vile,  belong  not  to  4  4  the  age  of 
Giantism,”  but  to  the  ages  of  Democ¬ 
racy,  its  earliest  as  well  as  its  latest,  the 
44  last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule  !”  No 
falsehood  or  misrepresentation,  however 
reckless  or  bold,  can  transfer  their  odium 
to  Republicanism  ! 

“THE  INDIANS.” 

The  pamphlet  charges  that,  during  “the- 
last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule,”-  (thanks 
to  the  vigilant  integrity  of  a  Republican 
House,)  “the  cost  of  the  Indian  service,” 
“when  the  Indians  were  far  more  numer¬ 
ous”  than  now,  was  $21,378,000,  or 
$3,563,000  per  year,  while  the  cost  of  the 
same  service  for  44  six  years  of  Grantism  ” 
was  $40,925,000,  or  $6,820,000  per 
year,  “or  about  twice  as  much  as  under 
Democratic  rule.” 

Now,  what  are  the  facts?'  Instead  of 
the  Indians  being  “far  more  numerous” 
under  “the  last  six  years  of  Democratic 
rule,”  as  alleged,  the  official  state¬ 
ment  is  that  the  number  now  annually 
supported  by  the  Government  is  more 
than  double  that  during  those  “last  six 
years.”  During  the  period  from  1856  to 
1861,  the  average  number  thus  annually 
supported  was  about  125,000 — the 
average  number  from  1870  to  1875  was 
more  than  300,000;  and  a  great 
many  which  in  former  years — during 
those  very  4 ‘last  six  years” — received  from 
the  Government,  annually,  only  a  few 
presents,  are  now  wholly  subsisted  by  the 
Indian  Bureau.  These  facts  explain  the 
causes  of  and  justify  the  apparent  in¬ 
crease  in  the  expenditure  of  the  service, 
leaving  no  just  ground  for  a  suspicion 
of  either  the  corruption  or  fraud,  charged 
so  recklessly  by  the  pamphlet  without  a 
single  speoific.fact  to  support  its  charges. 

The  policy  of  Grant  or  the  new  service 
has  been  to  remove  the  Indians  from  the 
new  States  and  Territories — to  concen¬ 
trate  or  confine  them  upon  reservations 


7 


of  limited  areas  immediately  under  the 
supervision  or  eye  of  the  Government — 
to  teach  them  the  mechanic  arts  and  to  till 
the  soil — to  support  themselves — en¬ 
couraging  them  to  this  by  furnishing 
them  the  tools  of  the  farm  and  seed,  by 
building  them  neat  homes,  school  houses, 
churches,  and  workshops — in  a  word  to 
colonize  and  civilize  them — to  redeem 
them  from  the  precarious  wretchedness 
of  savage  life,  and  convert  them,  finally, 
into  useful,  self-sustaining,  and  pro¬ 
ducing  citizens.  The  result  has  demon¬ 
strated  the  wisdom  as  well  as  the  justice 
of  this  policy.  The  new  States  and  Ter¬ 
ritories,  relieved  of  the  Indians,  have,  in 
the  enhanced  valuation  of  their  lands,  the 
extension  and  increased  profits  of  trade, 
and  the  augmented  product  of  a  peaceful 
tillage,  been  benefitted  to  an  extent  in¬ 
finitely  greater  than  the  increased  cost  of 
the  new  Indian  service. 

All  these  grand  triumps  of  the  policy 
inaugurated  by  President  Grant  as  one 
of  civilization,  justice,  and  mercy,  as  op¬ 
posed  to  the  old  Democratic  system  of 
robbery  and  war,  the  pamphlet  wholly 
ignores.  It  knows  that  this  increase  of 
Indian  expenditures  is  only  an  apparent 
increase — that  the  Indians  to-day  are  cost¬ 
ing  the  nation  infinitely  less,  in  money 
and  lives ,  than  at  any  farmer  period  un¬ 
der  the  old  system!  In  forty  years  the 
nation  expended  in  Indian  wars 
$500,000,000,  or  an  anuual  average  of 
$12,500,000  a  year.f  In  the  Florida  or 
Seminole  war  alone,  against  the  celebrated 
Osceola  and  his  fifteen  hundred  warriors, 
the  Democracy,  at  the  command  of  the 
slave-power  for  the  recovery  of  a  few 
slaves  adopted  by  the  tribe,  and  aided  by 
that  ‘‘heroic  race  of  warriors,”  the  Cuban 
“bloodhound,”*  expended,  in  seven  years, 
besides  the  lives  of  fifteen  hundred  of  our 
soldiers  and  as  many  wounded,  $50,000,- 
000  in  gold, f  or  an  annual  average  in  gold 
of  over  $7,000,000 — an  annual  sum  in  gold 
greater  than  the  whole  annual  cost 
in  paper  of  General  Grant’s  policy  of 
civilization  and  mercy.  So  under  Andrew 
Johnson,  in  1867  and  1868,  the  Cheye»«ie 
war,  in  two  years,  cost  the  nation 
$40,000,000 — $20,000,000  annually,  or 
annually  more  than  three  times  the  year¬ 
ly  cost  of  Grant’s  humane  system. f  Never¬ 
theless,  in  the  face  of  facts  so  notorious, 
ihe  pamphlet  charges  that  the  cost  of  the 
Indians  now  is  about  “twice  as  much  as 
under  Democratic  rule  !  ” 

“the  pensions.” 

The  nearest  attempt  at  specific  charges 


under  this  head  is  in  the  language  of  '‘an 
able  Republican  organ,”  Forney’s  Phila¬ 
delphia  Press ,  which  states  that  “it  is  the 
belief  of  the  higher  officials  of  the  Interior 
Department  that  at  least  seven  millions  of 
dollars  out  of  the  annual  appropriation  of 
thirty  millions  for  pensions  are  paid  on 
fraudulent  papers;”  and  in  the  quotation 
of  a  few  words  of  the  testimony  of  Mr. 
Atkinson,  the  Republican  Commissioner 
of  Pensions,  before  the  Pension  Committee 
of  the  House,  stating  his  belief  that  “three 
millions  of  dollars”  are  “paid  annually  on 
fraudulent  papers.”  The  pamphlet  in¬ 
quires  :  “Is  it  possible  that  this  has  been 
done  without  the  knowledge  and  con¬ 
nivance  of  the  officials  of  various  degrees?” 

But  what  are  the  facts?  It  is  true  that 
the  Bureau  has  long  suspected  the  existence 
of  these  “fraudulent  papers,”  and  have  re¬ 
sorted  to  every  human  agency  to  detect 
and  defeat  them,  and  with  some  success ; 
but  the  charges  of  the  pamphlet  that 
“fully  fifty  thousand  are  thus  fraudulently 
drawing  pensions,”  and  that  “hundreds  of 
fraudulent  names’  ’  are  monthly  put  on  the 
roll’  ’  of  pensions,  unsustained  as  they  are 
by  any  fact  known  to  the  department,  or 
even  pretended  in  the  pamphlet,  are  simply 
and  impudently  false.  The  largest  num¬ 
ber  of  the  frauds  “believed”  to  exist  are 
perpetrated,  not  against  the  department, 
but  against  the  pensioner. 

The  radical  cause,  and  that  which  creates 
the  greatest  difficulty,  rendering  combina¬ 
tions  or  conspiracies  for  fraud  easy,  is  the 
ex  parte  nature,  under  the  law,  of  the  af¬ 
fidavits  upon  which  the  application  is  based. 
In  the  South,  where  the  pensioners  are 
cliiefiy  negroes,  untutored  and  ignorant, 
and  the  attorneys  are  whites — ex-rebels, 
model  Democrats — a  wide  field  of  fraud 
exists,  and  gives  the  Bureau  its  greatest 
trouble.  The  pensioner,  in  his  simplicity 
and  ignorance,  swears  to  whatever  his  at¬ 
torney  demands.  The  application  is  filed. 
Every  precaution  in  the  premises  is  taken 
by  the  Bureau.  The  applicant  is  sent  to 
a  distant  town  for  examination  by  a  strange 
physician,  his  identity  is  rigidly  inquired 
into  by  the  special  agent  of  his  locality,  his 
record  in  the  Adjutant  General’s  Office, 
the  roll  of  his  regiment  and  of  his  company, 
are  searched,  his  muster-out  or  discharge 
papers,  and  the  testimony  of  his  command¬ 
ing  officer  and  of  the  regimental  surgeon, 
if  to  be  had,  are  all  required,  and  thus 
thousands  are  baffled  ;  but  many  get 
through,  when  the  rebel  attorney,  the 
pamphlet’s  model  of  Democratic  honesty, 
coolly  pockets  the  pension,  and  swindles 
the  Bureau  or  his  client!  This  is  the  great 
abuse  with  which  the  Bureau  has  to  con¬ 
tend.  It  also  exists  in  the  North  and  West, 
through  corrupt  combinations  in  large 
cities,  where  the  rebel  sympathizer,  as  the 
ex-rebel  in  the  South — all  models  of  Dem¬ 
ocratic  honesty — gamers  a  rich  harvest  of 
fraud.  These  facts  are  notorious! 


♦See  Resolutions  of  John  Q.  Adams,  in 
House  of  Representatives,  March  9,  1840;  as 
also  the  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  ( J.  R. 
Poinsett,  of  S.  C.,)  to  the  Senate,  February  17, 
1840,  acknowledging  and  justifying  the  use  of 
this  “heroic  race  of  warriors.” 

fSee  official  estimates  in  speeches  of  Lough- 
bridge,  of  Iowa,  and  Parker,  of  Mo.,  in  Cong. 
Record,  vol.  II,  part  4,  of  1st  Sess.,  43d  Cong., 
pp.  3464  to  3476. 


1 


8 


A  cure  for  this  rascality  is  the  great 
problem  of  the  Bureau.  How  to  detect 
and  defeat  the  frauds,  and  punish  their 
authors  ?  It  was  in  a  discussion  of  that 
problem  that  the  article  in  Forney’s  Press 
was  written,  and  which  induced  Mr.  Atkin¬ 
son  to  appear  before  the  committee. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  beneficiaries  of 
the  frauds  are  the  authors  of  the  clamors 
against  the  Bureau.  These  are  always 
loudest  in  Democratic  localities.  In  all 
such  communities  there  is  hardly  a  rebel 
sympathizing  man  or  woman  who  is  not 
ready  to  swear  that  every  pensioner  in  the 
district  is  a  fraud.  Charges  to  that  effect 
are  daily  made  to  the  Bureau,  as  in  Demo¬ 
cratic  journals,  but  when  the  special  agent 
visits  the  locality,  when  he  calls  upon  the 
author  of  the  charges  and  demands  his 
proofs,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hun¬ 
dred,  he  has  no  proofs;  he  refers  to  another 
for  his  authority,  and  so  on  throughout 
the  district,  each  giving  his  fellow  for  au¬ 
thority,  knowing  nothing  himself,  and  the 
investigation  fails. 

Such  are  some  of  the  difficulties  of  the 
Pension  Bureau,  the  well-known  causes 
and  sources  of  its  frauds.  They  compel 
the  constant  exercise  of  all  the  sagacity — 
all  the  vigilance — of  the  Republican  “offi¬ 
cials  of  various  degrees?”  But  in  them 
all,  is  there  any  foundation,  any  justifica¬ 
tion  of  the  pamphlet’s  inuendo  that,  from 
Barrett  to  Atkinson,  so  soon  as  a  Republi¬ 
can  official  has  discovered  fraud,  and  at¬ 
tempted  to  eradicate  it,  he  has  been  com¬ 
pelled  to  resign?  Is  it  probable  that  Gen. 
Grant — any  Republican  President — any 
pressure  from  any  Republican  source — 
would  arraign  or  condemn  a  Republican 
official  for  exposing  and  attempting  to  pun¬ 
ish  Democratic  fraud — the  characteristic 
“honesty”  of  model  Democracy? 

“THE  SANBORN  CONTRACTS”  AND  GEN¬ 
ERAL  ORDER  BUSINESS. 

Under  this  head  the  attempt  of  the 
pamphleteer  is  to  create  the  impression 
that  contracts  “for  the  farming  of  the 
revenues”  to  the  extent  of  $10,000,000 
were  corruptly  given  to  Sanborn  as  a  par¬ 
ty  favorite  ;  that  such  contracts  were  pe¬ 
culiar  to  the  Republicans  ;  that  “  the  offi¬ 
cers  appointed  and  paid  to  collect  the  rev¬ 
enue  were  ordered  to  assist  him;”  that 
Sanborn  was  to  receive  one-lialf  of  his  col¬ 
lections,  and  that  he  and  others,  “under 
similar  contracts,  ’  ’  actually  collected  and 
divided  immense  amounts.  The  pam¬ 
phlet  urges  :  “In  these  corrupt  trades  we 
see  how  taxes  wrung  from  the  people  have 
been  applied,”  and  adds  :  “Further  com¬ 
ments  upon  this  monstrous  swindle  is  su¬ 
perfluous?  ” 

As  a  matter  of  fact  this  class  of  con¬ 
tracts,  and  the  system  under  which  they 
originated,  arc  parts  of  the  Democratic 
legacy  of  corruption  to  the  Republicans. 
Similar  contracts  for  a  like  purpose  existed 


as  far  back  as  Guthrie’s  administration  of 
the  Treasury,  and  for  a  time  they  were 
continued  under  “Grantism,”  until  their 
character  was  understood,  when  they  were 
promptly  annulled  by  Secretary  Boutweli. 
Only  a  small  amount  was  collected  under 
them;  and  subsequently,  as  the  result  of 
an  investigation  into  their  character  by 
the  Republican  House  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  all  claims  under  them 
in  any  quarter  were  forever  excluded.  * 
Right  here  a  brief  history  of  the  system 
out  of  which  they  grew  and  its  authors, 
will  be  instructive.  In  1844,  the  partisans 
of  James  K.  Polk,  the  Democratic  candi¬ 
date  for  the  Presidency,  solemnly  pledged 
him  before  the  people  as  in  favor  of  the 
protective  tariff  of  1842;  but  installed  in 
office,  under  the  lash  of  the  proslavery 
power,  Polk,  in  the  teeth  of  those  pledges, 
recommended  and  approved  the  free-trade 
tariff  of  1846,  and  with  it  introduced  the 
corrupt  European  warehouse  system, 
which,  in  1854,  was  extended  to  embrace 
private  warehouses.  Out  of  these  grew 
the  class  of  contracts  called  the  “San¬ 
born.  ’  ’  Also,  the  4 4  seizure  bureau,  ’  ’  and 
the  4  4  general  order  ’  ’  business,  that  noto¬ 
rious  over-ripe  44 big  plum”  of  the  New 
York  collectorship.  In  1867,  the  “big 
plum  ’  ’  was  investigated  by  the  Re^  abli- 
can  House  Committee  on  Public  Expendi¬ 
tures.  Andrew  Johnson  was  President. 
Henry  A.  Smythe  had  been  appointed  his 
collector  at  New  York.  What  did  the  in¬ 
vestigation  develop  ?  Turn  to  the  com¬ 
mittee’s  exposure  of  a  characteristic  Dem¬ 
ocratic  44  White-house  speculation  !  ” 

The  collector,  Henry  A.  Smythe,  farmed 
to  certain  parties  the  famous  4 4 big  plum,” 
the  “general  order”  business,  for $40, 000 
per  annum.  That  sum  could  only  be 
realized  by  the  fanners  of  the  business  by 
the  extortion  of  illegal  charges  upon  the 
goods  stored  under  4 4 general  orders,” 
which  charges  subsequently  entered  into 
the  cost  of  tire  goods,  and  became  taxes 
upon  the  people.  But  44  big  plum  ”  as  it 
was,  the  collector  was  not  allowed  to  ap¬ 
propriate  it  wholly,  but  was  forced  to  di¬ 
vide  the  corrupt  morsel.  Among  whom  ? 
The  division  was  arranged  at  Washing¬ 
ton,  in  the  White  House,  in  the  presence 
of  the  President — that  model  Democratic 
embodiment  and  expounder  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution — with  his  knowledge — his  conniv¬ 
ance — at  his  command.  The  following  is 
the  division  verified  b6iare  the  committee 
by  the  corroborating  testimony  of  a  num¬ 
ber  of  responsible  witnesses  : 

“Geo"ge  F.  Thomson,  late  of  the  Dai¬ 
ly  News,  a  Democratic  organ,  to 


receive  .  . . $5,000  00 

“Senator  Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin  .  .  5,000  00 

“Senator  Patterson,  of  Tennessee, 

Andy’s  Son-in-law .  5,000  00 

“Deputy  Collector  Embree .  2,000  00 

“Humphrey,  and  by  him  at  once  re¬ 
jected.  .  . .  3,000  00 


*  See  Report  of  Committee. 


9 


“Brown, Collector’s  private  Secret’y, 

also  rejected  .  .  . .  2,000  00 

“Political  Fund .  10,000  00 

■“Mrs.  Perry,”  known  as  a  “Wash¬ 
ington  woman  ” .  3,000  00 

“Van  Bergen,  some  unknown  share, 
say  . .  5,000  00 

“Total .  40,000  00” 


Robert  Johnson,  Andy’s  son,  was  also 
to  receive  $5,000,  and  Doolittle’s  $5,000 
was  in  payment  for  Smytho-’s  confirma¬ 
tion.*  The  details  are  as  infamous  as  dis¬ 
gusting  ?  In  the  language  of  the  pam¬ 
phlet,  “in  these  corrupt  trades  we  see 
how  taxes  wrung  from  the  people  have 
been  applied”  by  the  Democracy,  and 
truly,  ‘  ‘  further  comment  upon  this  mon¬ 
strous  swindle  is  superfluous  !  ” 

“a  white  house  speculation.  ” 

In  the  arraignment  under  this  head  the 
pamphlet  berates  General  Grant  for  trans¬ 
ferring  the  position  of  ‘  ‘  financial  agent  of 
our  Government  abroad,”  in  London, 
from  one  English  banking-house,  (the 
Messrs.  Barings.)  to  another  English  bank¬ 
ing-house,  (Messrs.  Clews  &  Company.) 
In  this  silly  count  the  rebel  sympathy  of 
the  pamphlet  crops  out*  grandly.  The 
Messrs  Clews,  although  foreigners  by  birth, 
were  American  citizens,  and  loyal  to  the 
Union.  The  Barings  were  rebel  sympa¬ 
thizers,  the  active  agents  of  the  English 
aristocrats  who  openly  sided  with  the 
rebels,  furnishing  them  with  ships  and 
money  in  their  war  upon  the  nation,  and 
who  recently,  at  Richmond,  Virginia, 
erected  a  statue  of  “  Stonewall  Jackson.” 
Upon  the  fact  of  this  transfer  of  our  1  finan¬ 
cial  agency  abroad,”  and  upon  the  further 
fact  that  in  the  proceedings  in  bankrupt¬ 
cy  upon  the  failure  of  Clews  &  Company 
some  years  subsequently,  one  Cheever, 
Judge  Dent,  and  a  man  of  straw,  James 
A.  Van  Buren,  turned  up  as  claimants 
for  pay  in  securing  the  transfer,  the  pam¬ 
phlet  builds  a  “cormorant  ring  of  White 
House  favorites.”  It  denounces  the  trans¬ 
fer  as  a  “  corrupt  job.”  Every  effort  is 
made  to  befoul  General  Grant  with 
its  vile  inuendoes !  Cheever,  probably 
unknown  at  the  White  House,  is  described 
as  a  “friend  at  Court,”  and  Dent  as  a 
“  brother-in-law  of  Grant,  and  a  hanger- 
on  at  the  White  House,”  but  it  fails  to 
state  that  both  Cheever  and  Dent  were 
Democrats — that  notoriously  Dent  had 
little  or  no  influence  with  the  President, 
as  was  evidenced  among  other  instances 
in  the  General’s  refusal  to  assist  Dent 
when  a  Democratic  candidate  in  Missis¬ 
sippi  for  the  position  of  Governor  against 
General  Alcorn  when  elected  by  the  Re- 
puMicans. 

The  pamphlet  manifests  its  own  sense 
of  the  shabby  weakness  of  its  canard  by 


♦See  H.  R.  No.  30, 2d  Sess.,  39th  Congress,  pp. 
4,  78,  &ct 


I 

calling  to  its  aid  not  real  or  tangible  proof, 
but  the  “popular  belief.” 

Now,  what  are  the  facts?  Wliat  in¬ 
duced  the  transfer  ?  Upon  the  firing  upon 
Fort  Sumpter  at  the  opening  of  the  Rebel¬ 
lion,  the  Barings,  who  for  years  had  en¬ 
joyed  the  position — a  lucrative  one — of  our 
“financial  agent”  in  London,  believing 
the  Union  had  collapsed,  and  wishing  to 
aid  in  its  destruction,  andliaving  a  balance 
on  its  books  against  the  United  States, 
despatched  a  messenger  to  Washington  to 
demand  its  payment.  He  arrived  at  the 
end  of  a  day,  a  short  time  before  the  closing 
of  the  departments,  and  demanded  the  in¬ 
stant  payment  of  the  money,  would  take 
no  refusal,  nor  enter  into  any  compromise 
He  obtained  it  and  departed. 

It  was  a  blow  of  an  enemy,  at  a  critical 
moment,  at  the  life  of  the  Union — the  in¬ 
tegrity  of  the  nation.  Our  whole  loyal 
people,  outraged  and  indignant,  denounced 
the  Barings,  and  the  Government  resolved 
to  transfer,  at  the  earliest  moment,  the 
agency  to  an  American  house.  Hence, 
upon  the  establishment  in  London  of  a 
branch  of  a  house  so  respectable  as  the 
New  York  firm  of  Clews  &  Co.,  and  be¬ 
lieved,  at  the  time,  to  be  as  sound  as  any 
in  the  world,  the  agency  was  naturally 
transferred  to  them.  The  transfer  needed 
no  lobbying.  It  received  none;  nor  was 
there  a  word  or  syllable  in  the  proceedings 
in  bankruptcy  to  justify  a  belief  that  there 
was,  or  that  a  knowledge  existed  at  the 
White  House  of  the  connection  of  Cheever 
and  Dent  with  Clews — nothing  but  the 
evidences  of  a  sharp  trick  upon  the  Clews 
by  Cheever,  who  collected  his  bond. 

Clews’s  failure,  and  the  consequent  loss 
to  the  Government,  form  one  of  those  inci¬ 
dents  in  business  life  which  the  greatest 
sagacity  will  sometimes  fail  to  anticipate, 
but  which  none  will  knowingly  or  volun¬ 
tarily  work  for. 

But  the  Democracy,  just  now,  are  be¬ 
rating  Secretary  Robeson  for  a  similar 
transaction  by  which  he  succeded  in  saving 
to  the  nation  near  a  million  of  dollars. 
Upon  the  collapse  of  the  home  house  of  the 
great  banking  firm  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Co., 
the  Secretary  had,  to  the  credit  of  the 
navy,  in  the  vaults  of  the  London  branch, 
Jay  Cooke,  McCullough  &  Co.,  a  million 
of  dollars.  To  have  demanded  the  pay¬ 
ment  of  the  money  would,  in  all  probability, 
have  involved  the  London  branch  in  the 
ruin  of  the  home  firm,  and  entailed  upon 
the  Government  a  loss  of  hundreds  of 
thousands.  To  save  those  thousands,  if 
possible,  was  the  duty  of  the  Secretary. 
Proofs  of  the  solvency  of  the  London 
branch  were  furnished  him.  He  believed 
in  its  final  ability  to  pay.  Securing  the 
Government,  therefore,  by  the  proper 
bonds,  the  Secretary  assumed  the  respon¬ 
sibility  of  permitting  the  deposits  to  re¬ 
main  in  the  London  branch,  and  the  result 
has  been  a  saving  of  a  million  to  the  nation. 


10 


The  wisdom  of  Robeson  robbed  the  Dem¬ 
ocracy  of  a  rich  harvest  of  scandal — of 
characteristic  campaign  thunder:  they  con¬ 
sequently  cannot  forgive  him.  Hence,  they 
pretend  to  see  in  both  transactions — in  the 
loss  of  money  by  Clews  and  the  saving  of 
money  by  McCullough — equally  proofs  of 
collusion  and  fraud.  They  denounce  both 
acts  as  corrupt. 

But  the  pamphlet  neglects  to  furnish 
a  history  of  a  celebrated  antecedent  of 
those  transactions  in  the  most  illustrious 
of  its  Presidents.  Has  it  ever  heard  of 
the  removal  of  the  Government  deposits — 
millions  in  amount — from  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  a  Whig  institution,  and 
their  transfer  to  the  Democratic  “Pet 
Banks, 5  ’  the  local 1  ‘Bogus  Banks,  ’  ’  by  Pres¬ 
ident  Jackson,  who  openly  assumed  the  re¬ 
sponsibility  in  a  “paper  read  to  his  Cabi¬ 
net,  ’ 5  removed  by  him  in  the  face  of  the  law, 
and  under  the  denunciation  of  the  Senate 
as  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws.  That  was  also  a  “White  House 
speculation” — a  Democratic  “White  House 
speculation.”  It  was  engineered  by  the 
Chief  Butler  of  the  notorious  Democratic 
‘  ‘  Kitchen  Cabinet 5  ’ — Amos  Kendall.  Its 
results  were  appalling.  The  destruction 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the 
collapse  of  the  Democratic  “  Pet  Banks,” 
inflicting  upon  the  Government  a  loss  of 
hundreds  of  thousands — almost  financial 
ruin — earned  with  them  the  wholesale 
bankruptcy  of  our  business  men,  the  ruin 
of  the  business  and  commerce  of  the  coun¬ 
try;  and  the  nation  for  years,  in  conse¬ 
quence,  was  filled  with  the  want  and  woes 
and  cries  of  suffering  millions. 

“  BELKNAP  ”  —  “PERSONAL  ABUSE  OF 
POWER/’  ETC. 

The  pamphlet  attempts  a  defence  of  the 
public  virtue  of  the  committee  which  de¬ 
veloped  Belknap’s  crime,  and  to  convict 
Gen.  Grant  of  a  design  to  protect  Belknap. 
It  says :  President  Grant  ordered  the  pro¬ 
secution  of  the  informer,  (Marsh,)  driving 
him  out  of  the  country,  but  that  he  had 
returned  under  a  pardon  obtained  through 
the  influence  of  the  Democratic  House. 
Is  not  that  downright  lying?  Quailing 
before  the  indignation  of  the  country  at 
their  disgraceful  trickery  in  examining 
Marsh,  in  secret,  so  far  as  to  convict  Bel¬ 
knap,  and  then  discharging  him,  conniving 
at  his  escape*  in  order  to  protect  one  equally 
guilty,  a  particeps  criminis  with  Belknap, 
one  George  Pendleton,  a  prominent  candi¬ 
date  for  Hie  Democratic  nomination  for  the 
Presidency,  the  committee,  again  in  secret, 
put  up  another  little  job— to  request  the  At¬ 
torney  General  to  procure  the  pardon  of 
Marsh,  in  the  hope  that  Gen.  Grant  would 
object,  and  they  would  recover  their  lost 
reputation  under  renewed  indignation 

*See  speech  of  Hon.  Lyman  K.  Bass,  amem- 
ber  of  the  Committee  m  the  House,  March 
10,  1876. 


against  the  President  ?  Again  they  were 
caught  in  the  toils.  The  President  had  al¬ 
ready  pardoned  Marsh,  and  he  returned, 
not  under  the  influence  of  the  Democratic 
House,  but  to  its  discomfiture,  under  the 
influence  of  Grant ! 

As  to  his  resignation,  Belknap  declares, 
through  his  counsel,  before  the  Senate, 
that  he  was  influenced  by  no  motive  to 
evade  impeachment ;  that  under  an  agree¬ 
ment  with  the  Hon.  Heister  Clymer,  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee,  and  as  a 
means  of  saving  his  wife  the  affliction  sure 
to  attend  the  publication  of  Marsh’s  testi¬ 
mony,  he  had  admitted  the  truth  of  that 
testimony,  on  condition  that  it  should  be 
suppressed,  and  had  resigned  under  the 
threat  of  Clymer  that  he  would  move  his 
impeachment  if  he  did  not  resign  before 
the  noon  of  the  2d  of  March,  but  all  only 
as  a  means  of  avoiding  affliction  to  his 
wife  by  the  speedy  dismissal  of  the  pain¬ 
ful  subject  from  the  public  mind. 

So  with  every  other  charge  of  this  pamph¬ 
let.  Again  and  again  has  it  been  shown 
that  Tom  Murphy  did  not  give  Gen.  Grant 
a  cottage  at  Long  Branch;  yet  this  pamph¬ 
let  charges  that  he  did.  Again  and  again 
has  it  been  shown  that  Gen.  Grant  ac¬ 
cepted  no  horse  from  McDonald;  yet  this 
pamphlet  charges  that  he  did.  But  ad¬ 
mitting  the  contributions  of  Butterfield, 
Stewart,  and  Borie — when  were  they  made? 
Was  it  after  the  General  had  become  Pre¬ 
sident,  or  with  a  view  to  influence  an  ap¬ 
pointment?  Was  it  not  long  before  the 
General  became  President — before  he  was 
a  candidate  for  the  Presidency — and  simply, 
as  citizens,  as  a  testimonial  of  gratitude  to 
the  successful  soldier,  who,  in  the  field,  by 
his  courage  and  genius,  had  rescued  the 
nation  from  the  murderous  grasp  of  the 
rebel  gang  who  now  multiply  slanders 
against  him  ?  Is  pot  here  the  whole  ani¬ 
mus  of  all  the  charges  against  the  Presi¬ 
dent — in  the  defeated  Rebel’s  inexorable 
and  revengeful  hatred  of  the  successful 
Patriot?  Grant  destroyed  the  “  LoSt 
Cause  ” — he  in  turn  must  be  destroyed. 

“MISCELLANEOUS  EXPENSES.” 

The  pamphlet  says  that  in  the  “last  six 
years  of  Democratic  rule,”  (thanks  to  the 
vigilance  of  a  Republican  House, )  its  “mis¬ 
cellaneous  expenses’  ’  ‘  ‘averaged  a  trifle  less 
than  $27,000,000  a  year,”  but  that  under 
“  Grant’s  six  years  ”  “  they  have  averaged 
$64,790,000  a  year,”  “  being  over  $37*800, - 
000  a  year  more  under  Grant  than  under 
the  rule  of  an  honest  party.”  But  what 
are  the  real  figures?  The  aggregate  of 
the  expenses  (in  statement  B)  of  the  Fi¬ 
nance  Reports,  under  the  head  of  “Mis¬ 
cellaneous,”  for  the  six  years  from  1870 
to  1875,  is  $261,870,472.90,  or  an  an¬ 
nual  average  of  only  $43,645,078.80, 
$21,144,921.20  less  than  the  statement  of 
the  pamphlet.  And  during  the  last  year 
(1875)  only  $50,528,536.22,  instead  of 


11 


$71,000,000  as  charged  by  the  pamph¬ 
let.  Upon  these  downright  falsehoods 
— these  fabricated  figures  for  a  disgrace¬ 
ful  purpose — the  pamphlet  builds  up  a 
structure  of  infamy  through  its  vague 
stereotyped  cry  of  corruption,  fraud,  rings, 
defalcations  and  crime,  as  the  results  of 
Republican  rule.  Of  course  its  infamous 
structure  falls  into  ruins  with  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  its  foundation— its  fabricated  figures. 

But  what  is  the  character  of  these  mis¬ 
cellaneous  expenses  ?  From  what  causes 
are  they  incurred?  Take  any  of  the  Fi¬ 
nance  Reports  for  the  last  six  years  ;  take 
the  last,  for  1875,  turn  to  statement  B,  and 
the  following  items  appear: 


Assessing  and  collecting  Internal 

Revenue . $4,289,442  71 

Punishing  violations  of  Internal 

Revenue  laws .  30,095  00 

Internal  Revenue  stamps, dies, &c  627,049  97 
Internal  Revenue  allowances  and 

drawbacks .  32,248  73 

Redemption  of  Internal  Revenue 

Stamps . 31,867  05 

Expenses  of  National  loan,  in¬ 
cluding  salaries .  552,397  97 

Expenses  National  currency  .  .  330,978  27 

Reissuing  of  National  currency  .  64.244  78 

Suppressing  counterfeiting  and 

fraud .  120,615  20 

Return  of  proceeds  of  captured 
and  abandoned  property  .  .  .  880,619  34 

Refunding  proceeds  of  cotton 

seized .  36,938  72 

Southern  Claims  Commission  .  .  51,800  00 

Expenses  of  Bureau  of  Engrav¬ 
ing  and  Printing .  1,581,669  41 

All  expenditures  derived  direct¬ 
ly  from  the  rebellion;  while  un¬ 
der  the  same  head  is  paid  : 

Collecting  customs  revenue  .  .  .  7.028,521  80 

Mint  establishment .  1,244.618  40 

Coast  Survey .  780,635  44 

Light-house  establishment  .  .  .  1,778,841  52 

Deficiencies  of  revenue  of  Post 

Office  Department .  6,562.216  30 

Erection  of  buildings  for  State, 

War,  and  Navy  Departments  .  1.049,059  54 

Postage  of  the  several  depts  .  .  .  1,022.165  13 


While  the  following  are  not  ex¬ 
penditures  at  all,  but  should 
have  been  deducted  from  the 
aggregate  of  receipts: 

Refunding  excess  of  deposits  lor 

unascertained  duties .  1,863,657  85 

Debentures  and  drawbacks  under 

customs  laws .  1,629,328  02 

Refunding  duties  illegally  col¬ 
lected  .  9,810  93 

Compensation  in  lieu  of  moieties  67,134  18 

Repayment  of  lands  erroneously 

sold .  35,036  55 

Five  per  cent,  fund  to  States  .  .  94,436  52 

Indemnity  from  swamp  lands  .  .  43,386  94 


31,839,416  25 

Leaving  but  $11,805,662.55,  from  the 
annual  average,  for  the  actual  miscella¬ 
neous  expenses  of  the  Government,  out  of 
which  the  pamphlet  proposes  to  “save 
$25,000,000  a  year.”  Is  further  comment 
necessary  ? 

“future  expenses”  and  “retrench¬ 
ment.” 

But  the  completest  refutation  of  the 
statements  and  inuendoes  of  the  pamph¬ 
let  as  to  the  past  and  “future  expendi¬ 
tures,”  all  as  characteristically  false  as 


those  already  examined  in  detail,  and  by 
which  it  labors  to  rob  Republicanism  of  i£s 
hard-beamed  triumphs  of  retrenchment — 
honest  administration — is  to  furnish  in  the 
following  tables,  from  the  highest  official 
sources,  the  actual  results  of  Republican 
rule: 


Reduction  of  Public  Expenditures. 

The  following  table  shows  the  expenditures 
of  the  Government  for  the  fiscal  years  from 
1865  to  1875.  inclusive,  with  the  reduction  each 


year  from 

1865  .  .  .  $1 

1866  . 

1867  . 

1868  . 

1869  . 

1870  . 

1871  . 

1872  . 

1873  . 

1874  . 

1875  . 


1865: 


Increase 

Reduct’n 


,297.555.224  41 
520,809,416  99 
357,542,675  16 
377,340,284  86 
322.865,277  80 
309,653,560  75!  Reduct’n 
292,177,188  25  Reduct’n 
277,517,962  67  Reduct’n 
290,345,245  33  Increase 
287.133,873  17  Reduct’n 
274,623,392  84  Reduct’n 


Maximum. 

Reduct’n  $776,745,807  42 
Reduct’n  163.266,741  83 
19,797,609  70 


54.475,007  06 
13.211,717  05 
17,476,372  50 
14,659,225  58 
12,827,282  66 
3.211,372  16 
12,510,480  33 

- A - 


From  1865  to  1875— Reduction  $1,022,931,831  5T 


Reduction  of  Public  Debt. 

Public  debt  July  1, 1866  . $2,773,236,173  69 


Public  debt  July  1, 1875  .  2,232,284,531  95 

Reduction .  540,951,641  74 


Reduction  of  Interest  on  the  Public  Debt. 

Reduction  of  interest  in  1868  .  .  .  $3,357,546  20 

Further  reduction  in  1869  .  9,729.802  91 

in  1870  .  1,45S,744  80 

in  1871  .  3,658,932  07 

in  1872  .  8,218,728  21 

in  1873 . 12,607,151  28 

in  1875  .  4,026,270  64* 


Further  reduction 
Further  reduction 
Further  reduction 
Further  reduction 
Further  reduction 


Reduction .  43.057,174  11 

Less  increase  in  1874  .  2,369,126  77 


Net  reduction  of  interest .  .  .  40,683,047,34 


Reduction  of  Interest  on  Debt  by  Funding. 
Amoun  tof  6  per  cent,  bonds  funded 
at  5  per  cent . $500,005,000 


Saving  of  interest  per  annum  .  .  .  5,000.000 


Reduction  of  Interned  Revenue  Taxes. 
Internal  revenue  taxes  1866  .  .  .  $309,226,813  42 
Internal  revenue  taxes  1875  .  .  .  110,007,493  58 

Reduction . 199,219,319  S4 


Direct  Income  Taxes  Abolished. 


Collected  on  incomes  1867 . $4,200,233  TO 

Income  taxes  since  1871 . Abolished 


Total  Reduction  Internal  Revenue  and  Income 

Taxes. 

Internal  revenue  taxes  1S66  .  .  .  $309,226,813  42 
Direct  income  taxes  1867 ....  4,200,233  70 


313,427,047  12 

Total  taxes  in  1875  .  110,007,493  58 

Annual  reduction .  203,419,553  54 


Reduction  of  Customs  Taxes. 


Actual  decrease,  1873 . $28,208,774  07 

Actual  decrease,  1874  .  24,985,689  01 

Actual  decrease,  1875  . 8,370,286  76 


Actual  total,  three  years  .  .  .  .  59,564,749  84 


Reduction  of  Taxes  by  Acts  of  Congress. 
The  following  exhibits  the  estimated  reduc- 


12 


tion*of  annual  internal  taxation  and  customs 
•duties  under  the  laws  mentioned : 

Act  Of  July  13, 1866 . $65,0^0,000  00 

Act  of  March  2,  1867 .  40,000,000  00 

Act  of  February  3,  1868 .  23,000,000  00 

Acts  of  March  1  and  July  20, 1868,  45,000,000  00 

Act  of  July  14,  1870  .  78,848,827  33 

Acts  of  May  1  and  June  6, 1872..  .  51,823,761  38 

Net  ann vial  reduction .  303,672,588  71 


These  were  actual  reductions  based  on  the 
receipts  of  the  previous  years ;  yet  the  reve¬ 
nues  did  not  fall  ©if  to  the  extent  of  the  re¬ 
ductions  for  the  following  reasons :  The  im¬ 
portation  of  foreign  goods  continued  to 
increase,  and  went  up  from  $445,512,158,  in 
1866,  to  $663,617,147,  in  1873,  thus  swelling  the 
revenues.  So  in  internal  revenue  experience: 
When  whisky,  for  example,  paid  a  duty  of  $2 
per  gallon,  the  receipts  were  (1S68)  $13,419,- 
092.74.  In  1869  the  tax  wa9  reduced  to  fifty 
cents  per  gallon,  and  in  the  following  year 
the  collection  of  revenue  on  whisky  alone 
amounted  to  $38,633,184.13.  This  shows  how, 
after  making  a  reduction  of  over  three  hun¬ 
dred  million  dollars  in  the  taxes, the  revenues 
amounted  to  $288,000,051  for  the  last  year.  The 
reduction  is  stated  above  at  $303,672,588.71, 
based  on  evidence  produced  in  Congress;  but 
a  careful  examination  shows  the  actual  aggre¬ 
gate  reduetion  to  he  $319,527,230.  That  this 
vast  reduction  of  taxation  should  he  accom¬ 
plished  since  1866,  during  “the  six  years  of 
iG-rantism,”  and  the  public  debt  in  the  same 
time  reduced  $540,951,641.74,  with  an  actual 
reduction  of  $40,688,047.34  of  the  interest  on 
the  debt,  certainly  evinces  both  good  states¬ 
manship  and  careful  economy,  rather  than 
*‘incompetency,  extravagance,  corruption 
and  fraud,”  so  recklessly  charged  by  the 
pamphlet. 

Public  Credit— Borrowing  Power  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment. 

Under  Democratic  Rule.— In  1860,  during 
the  last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule,”  the 
Buchanan  administration  borrowed  $10,000,- 
000,  at  T2  per  cent,  discount.  (See  Finance 
Reports  for  1860,  ’61  and  ’6*2.) 

Under  Republican  Rule.— The  following 
are  the  rates  of  interest  on  Government 
.stocks: 

Per  cent. 

First  four  months  of  1861,  just  prior 
to  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion, 


5  per  cent,  stocks .  8.14 

March,  1868,  commencement  of  third 
year  of  Johnson’s  Administration, 

10-40s,  5  per  cent .  7.15 

March,  1869,  10-40S,  5  per  cent .  6.43 

J uly  1, 1872, 10-40s,  5  per  cent .  5.03 

$500,000,000,  5-20s  refunded,  1875,  at  ...  .  5.00 


At  par.  This  great  success  in  the  funding 
of  the  $500,000,000  of  the  5-20  six  per  cent,  bonds 
at  five  per  cent,  in  1875,  only  anticipated  the 
greater  success  of  May,  1876,  in  the  sale  of  the 
five  per  cent  funded  loan  of  1881,  authorized 
l>y  the  acts  of  July  14, 1870,  and  January,  20, 
1871— Drexel,  Morgan  &  Co.,  for  themselves 
and  associates,  bidding  for  the  whole  amount, 
■  ($5, 883', 000,)  at  103.73  7-16. 


Entrenchment  in  Internal  Revenue  Bureau. 
The  number  of  officials  and  employees  in 
Internal  Revenue  Bureau,  July  1,  1875,  aa 
compared  with  the  number  December  1, 1866, 
was — 


December  1,  1SG6 . 8,599 

J  uly  1, 1875  .  3,610 

Total . 4,989 


with  a  corresponding  heavy  saving  in  an¬ 
nual  expenses,  and  so  in  all  the  Executive 
Departments. 

Or,  in  brief,  the  Republican  party  lias 
accomplished — 

‘  ‘A  steady  reduction  of  the  public  expen¬ 
ditures  for  ten  consecutive  years,  with  only 
two  exceptions; 

‘‘A  reduction  of  $540,951,641.74  in  the 
public  debt; 

“A  reduction  of  $40,688,047.34  per  an¬ 
num  of  the  interest  on  the  debt; 

“A  reduction  of  $203,419,553.54  per  an¬ 
num  in  the  Internal  revenue  taxes; 

‘  ‘The  abolishment  of  the  direct  or  per¬ 
sonal  income  tax; 

“A  reduction  of  $59,564,749.84  per  an 
num  in  the  customs  taxes; 

“A  material  reduction  in  the  rates  of  In¬ 
terna  tional  Postage; 

“The  sinking  fund  provided  for; 

“The  expenses  of  the  Oovemmen.  paid, 
and  a  surplus  from  the  year’s  receipts  in 
the  Treasury.” 

These  are  the  actual  substantial  results 
of  Republicanism,  and  as  a  practical  guar¬ 
antee  of  the  future,  give  the  ‘  ‘  lie  direct  ’  ’ 
to  all  the  speculations  of  the  pamphlet. 

“DEFALCATIONS  AND  FRAUDS.” 

The  pamphlet’s  meagre  list  of  default¬ 
ers  and  frauds,  considered  in  connection 
with  the  magnitude  of  the  financial 
transactions  of  the  government,  extend¬ 
ing  annually  to  hundreds  of  millions, 
is  a  showing,  comparatively,  in  favor 
of  Republicanism — a  practical  vindica¬ 
tion  of  its  administrative  integrity.  It 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  any  within 
the  knowledge  of  the  pamphleteer  have 
been  omitted.  But  culled  from  the  sen¬ 
sational  newspaper,  the  dates  of  the  re¬ 
spective  delinquencies  extending  over 
years,  even  antedating  the  “six  years  of 
Grantism,”  and  the  amounts  and  nature 
of  the  default  in  some  exaggerated,  and 
yet  even  such  a  list  was  only  compiled  by 
including  such  as  “Paymaster  Hodge,” 
the  heaviest  in  the  list,  and  notoriously  a 
life-long  Democrat — to-day,  as  always,  a 
Democratic  voter,  and  whose  default  oc¬ 
curred  under  the  administration  of  his 
Department  by  another  Democrat,  Pay¬ 
master  General  B.  W.  Brice — and  as  F.  A. 
McCartney,  Disbursing  Officer  of  the 
Post  Office  Department,  now  several  years 
deceased,  but  in  life  a  political  writer  of 
the  Democratic  school,  and  appointed  by 
the  Postmaster  General,  on  personal 
grounds,  against  the  earnest  protest  of 
Republicans.  Is  not  such  a  list  a  shal- 


18 


low  shift.  It  also  conceals  the  important 
fact,  that,  as  in  the  case  of  Bailey  and 
others,  a  large  proportion  of  the  amounts 
of  default  was  recovered  Xpy  the  prompt 
prosecution  of  bondsmen . 

But  what  are  the  facts — what  the  offi¬ 
cial  statement  of  the  comparative  losses 
from  all  causes  by  the  Government  ? 

In  the  Internal  Revenue ,  the  average 
losses  on  collections  do  not  exceed  one- 
fiftieth  of  one  per  cent ! 

In  the  Customs  the  losses  on  collections 
are  but  one  fifty-fifth  of  one  per  cent  ! 

In  the  Treasurer'’ s  Bureau ,  in  eleven 
and  a  half  years,  the  losses  have  been 
less  than  $1  in  $1,000,000  ! 

Through  the  National  Banks,  the  losses 
to  creditors  are  but  a  one-hundred-and- 
eighty-sixth  part  of  one  per  cent! 

While  in  1860,  with  a  population  of 
31,000,000,  the  expenditures  per  capita 
were  2.004,  in  1875,  with  a  population  of 
but  43,000,000  it  was  only  1 . 710! 

Is  there  anything  in  the  “last  six  years 
of  Democratic  rule” — in  any  of  the  “ages 
of  Democracy” — to  equal  such  a  showing 
of  “the  six  years  of  Grantism  ?” 

‘“WHISKY  FRAUDS,” — “FRAUDS  AND  DE¬ 
FALCATIONS,”  &C. 

Under  these  heads  all  the  vile  slanders 
for  years  of  a  shameless  press,  again  and 
again  refuted,  are  urged  by  the  pamphlet 
against  Gen.  Grant  and  Republicanism. 
Even  the  efforts  of  Republican  officials, 
Secretary  Bristow  and  Commissioners 
Douglass  and  Pratt,  backed  by  Gen.  Grant 
and  his  ringing  fiat — uLet  no  gxnlty  man 
escape ” — for  the  arrest  and  punishment  of 
the  guilty,  are  used  as  proofs  of  “a 
gigantic  conspiracy  to  defraud  the  Gov¬ 
ernment.” 

Now,  the  notorious  spoliation  of  the 
revenue  by  these  “Whisky  Rings”  under 
Andrew  Johnson  should  not  be  forgotten 
— nor  the  scandal  created  by  the  impuni- 
nity  with  which,  under  Andy’s  Demo¬ 
cratic  officials,  their  pillage  was  perpe¬ 
trated — nor  the  boast  with  which  they 
were  charged  of  having  plundered  the 
government  of  $800,000,000,  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  official  fact  that,  in  1868, 
under  Johnson’s  Democratic  officials,  like 
the  James  Steadmans  &  Co.  ,  with  a  duty  i 
of  $2  per  gall,  on  whiskey,  only  $13,419,  j 
093.74  were  collected,  while  under  Grant,  j 
in  1870,  with  a  tax  of  only  50  cts.  per  gall.,  j 
a  revenue  of  $38,633,184.13  was  paid  into  j 
the  Treasury.  It  is  equally  certain  that ; 
now,  as  then,  these  “Whisky  Rings,”  or  a  ' 
majority  of  their  members,  are  Democrats,  i 
who  in  every  election,  National,  State,  and  I 
municipal,  the  country  over,  vote  with  the  j 
Democracy,  and  whose  contributions 
form  its  principal  support — in  whose  in¬ 
terest  every  Democratic  State  legislature 
and  municipal  council  or  board  the  nation 
through  frame  their  liquor  laws,  and  with¬ 
out  whom  and  their  active  and  open  sup- 1 


port  and  contributions  the  Democracy 
wonld  pass  forever  out  of  all  existence, 
both  as  a  national  and  local  party — yet 
they  are  strangely  denounced  by  this  Dem¬ 
ocratic  pamphlet!  And  Douglass,  drop¬ 
ped  in  the  reorganization  of  the  Revenue 
Department,  is  greatly  lauded  by  the 
pamphlet  for  the  vigor  of  his  war  upon 
its  whisky  friends,  but  only  as  a  means 
of  covering  Republicanism  with  odium, 
by  inflicting  a  blow  upon  General  Grant 
in  the  inuendo  that  Douglass  was  removed, 
and  removed  because  of  his  zeal  in  the 
prosecution.  With  an  inconsistency 
which  demonstrates  its  utter  want  of 
principle,  it  also  eulogizes  Bristow,  w'ho 
at  least  must  have  consented  to  Doug¬ 
las’s  removal.  Bristow  is  also  applauded 
as  honest  and  in  earnest — as  forcing  the 
prosecution  in  hostility  to  Grant.  The 
integrity  of  one  Republican  officer  is  thus 
used  to  damn  the  character  of  another 
Republican  official,  and  he  the  highest  in 
power — the  President.  Is  not  its  lie  upon 
its  face.  Bristow,  earnest  and  sincere,  and 
encouraged  by  Grant’s  noble  fiat,  uLet  no 
guilty  man  escape”  arraigned,  and  caused 
the  punishment  of  the  guilty.  Had  he 
encountered  resistance  in  his  chief,  he 
would  have  resigned,  and  promptly.  His 
honor  as  a  man — his  integrity  as  an  officer, 
charged  with  responsibilities  of  a  magni¬ 
tude  so  grave  and  vital,  demanded  it. 
Otherwise,  Bristow  could  not  escape  a 
suspicion — a  conviction — of  collusion  in 
crime. 

But  this  Democratic  document,  in  its 
malignant  pursuit  of  Gen.  Grant,  multi¬ 
plies  its  charges  in  every  form.  It  says  : 
“The  President’s  private  secretary,  Bab¬ 
cock,  is  pi'oved  to  have  been  the  right- 
bower  of  these  thieves  at  Washington, 
and  has  been  indicted  for  sharing  their 
plunder.”  Mark  you,  these  are  Demo¬ 
cratic  “thieves,”  the  “thieves”  of  the 
“Whisky  Ring,”  whose  votes  the  Demo¬ 
cracy  will  count  in  the  Presidential  elec¬ 
tion,  and  without  whose  heavy  contribu¬ 
tions  in  the  campaign  it  will  come  to 
premature  and  irremediable  grief.  And  yet 
this  is  a  Democrat  denouncing  Demo¬ 
cratic  “robbery  of  the  revenue.”  The 
Democracy  thus  select  out  its  highest 
rascals — the  most  notorious  and  the  deep¬ 
est  in  crime — their  ehief  support  in  all 
elections,  in  money  and  votes — expose 
and  magnify  their  crimes,  and  charge 
their  guilt  upon  Grant  and  the  Repub¬ 
licans.  But  ‘  ‘Babcock  is  proved  to  be  the 
right-bower.”  Proved  when,  where,  or 
how?  Indicted,  it  is  true,  and  tried  by  a 
jury  of  his  countrymen;  and  after  one  of 
the  severest  trials  in  the  history  of  crim¬ 
inal  jurisprudence,  and  in  which  every 
effort  was  made  to  convict  him,  every 
effort  made  by  those  opposed  to  him  per¬ 
sonally,  and  hostile  to  Gen.  Grant  and  the 
Republicans,  and  as  a  means  of  convict¬ 
ing  all — after  such  a  trial  he  was  tri- 


14 


umphantly  acquitted.  Where,  then,  are 
the  proofs? 

But  the  pamphlet  gloats  over  the  names 
of  the  Republican  officers  arraigned  and 
punished  by  their  Republican  chiefs  for 
their  crimes — McDonald,  Avery,  and 
Joyce.  They  have  been  convicted  it  cries. 
But  found  guilty  of  what?  Why  of  com¬ 
plicity  with  their  Democratic  coadjutors  in 
, -robbing  the  revenue,  and  sharing  the 
plunder.  This  fact,  the  arraignment  and 
punishment  of  its  guilty  officials,  great  in 
itself  and  to  the  credit  of  a  Republi¬ 
can  administration — an  uncontrovertible 
proof  of  its  fidelity  to  its  high  and  re¬ 
sponsible  trusts:  over  this  vindication  of 
Republican  administrative  integrity,  the 
pamphlet  rejoicingly  croaks  as  a  proof  of 
‘Corruption.  But  were  similar  guilt  and 
guilty  officials  ever  punished  under  Dem*- 
ocracy  ? 

As  early  as  1839,  the  Democratic  mi¬ 
nority  of  the  Harlan  committee  plead¬ 
ingly  urges:  “That  the  country  has  sus¬ 
tained  great  pecuniary  loss  no  man  can 
doubt ;  that  the  national  character  has 
suffered  deep  humiliation  and  disgrace 
no  man  can  hesitate  to  admit.  But  losses 
like  these  are  incident  to  all  governments 
— no  one  is  free  from  them.  The  annals 
of  our  own  afford  numerous  instances 
of  peculation,  committed  at  every  period 
of  its  short  existence,  under  all  and  every 
administration,  and  all  and  every  fiscal 
system  which  has  been  adopted  and  car¬ 
ried  into  practice — no  matter  who  has 
been  the  fiscal  agent,  the  Government 
has  sustained  loss:  it  must  be  so  until 
man  becomes  honest .” 

But  were  the  guilty  punished?  Martin 
V an  Buren  was  President !  From  the  Dem  o- 
cratic  minority  the  confession  had  been 
wrung  that  “the  country  had  sustained 
great  pecuniary  loss;”  “that  the  national 
character  had  suffered  deep  humiliation  and 
disgrace ” — all  through  the  Democracy — the 
wholesale  systematic  robbery  through  years 
by  Democratic  officials.  Did  the  Presi¬ 
dent  of  the  Democracy  declare,  “Let  no 
guiity  man  escape?”  Were  any  of  the 
guilty  punished?  Was  Swartwout,  whose 
infamy  was  of  such  a  magnitude  and  char¬ 
acter  that  his  name,  “  Swartwout passed 
into  the  dictionary  and  remained  there  for 
years  as  equivalent  to  “abscond  after  sys¬ 
tematic  thievery” — whose  crimes  began 
within  nine  months  after  his  appointment — 
within  twelve  months  after  the  birth  of  the 
Democracy,  in  1830,  and  continued  through 
seven  years — for  years  with  the  knowledge 
of  the  highest  in  authority— -for  years ,  from 
1833  to  1836,  without  a  bond  for  the  safe¬ 
keeping  of  the  millions  in  his  hands  ?  * 

Was  Swartwout  punished?  Wras  he  not 
apprised  in  time  to  make  his  escape  to  Eng¬ 
land  with  his  plunder?  Was  his  confed¬ 
erate,  Price,  the  United  States  District 
Attorney  for  the  Southern  District  of  New 

*  See  H,  K.  No.  313,  3d  Seas,,  23th  Congress. 


York?  W as  haraot  pe  rmitted  to  escape  with 
his  principal?  Wat  Gratiot  punished  ?  Out 
of  sixty-odd  receiver's  of  public  moneys, 
fifty  turned  up  defaulters.  Were  any  of 
them  punished?  Was  Harris  or  Boyd  or 
Allen?*  Or  any  attempt  made  to  punish 
them  ?  F orced  from  office  by  the  notoriety 
of  their  guilt,  were  they  not  allowed  by 
Democratic  Presidents  to  nominate  their 
successors,  who  robbed  in  their  turn,  while 
the  original  scamps  passed  into  Congress,  or 
the  State  Legislatures,  f  as  judges  on  inves¬ 
tigating  committees  of  the  guilt  of  others? 
Was  Secretary  Woodbury  impeached,  under 
whose  administration  all  this  corruption 
culminated  in  national  disgrace,  and  whose 
impeachment  was  demanded  by  the  Whigs? 
Was  Postmaster  General  Barry?  Were 
any  of  the  ‘  ‘  Spoils  Cabinet  ?  ’  ’  Although 
compelled  to  resign  by  a  unanimous  vote 
of  the  Senate  condemning  the  malpractices 
of  his  department,  was  not  Barry  promoted 
to  the  mission  to  Spain?  Was  not  Wood¬ 
bury,  after  continuing  in  office  till  the  close 
of  Van  Buren’ s  term,  transferred  to  the 
United  States  Senate  ?  Did  he  not  become 
a  prominent  candidate  for  the  Democratic 
nomination  to  the  Presidency  ? 

Is  not  this,  too,  an  epitome  of  every 
Democratic  Administration  up  to  Andy 
Johnson?  James  Iv.  Polk,  Frank  Pierce, 
and  James  Buchanan  were  the  Democratic 
successors  in  the  Presidential  office  of  An¬ 
drew  Jackson  and  Martin  Van  Buren. 
All  were  present  at  the  birth  of  the  Democ¬ 
racy  in  1829,  or  figured  in  the  early  subse¬ 
quent  scenes  attending  or  originating  in 
the  corruption  and  crimes  of  Jackson’s  and 
Van  Buren’ s  administrations.  James  Bu¬ 
chanan,  in  Congress,  as  the  author  of  the 
infamous  and  cruel  “bargain  and  corrup¬ 
tion’  ’  libel  against  Henry  Clay,  %  upon  which 
the  first  success  of  ‘  ‘the  party’  ’  was  based — 
upon  which  Jackson  was  first  elected,  and 
for  which  service  Buchanan  received  from 
Jackson  the  mission  to  Russia  ;  James  K. 
Polk,  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  openly 
packing  committees  to  screen  the  guilty — 
the  Swartouts,  Prices,  Harrises  and  Boyds, 
wallowing  in  notorious  corruption ;  and 
Frank  Pierce,  as  a  member  of  those  com- 


*  Amount  of  Swartwout’s  defalca¬ 
tion  . $1,225,705169 

Amount  of  Price’s  defalcation  .  .  72,124.06 

“  “  the  fifty  receivers’ .  .  825,078.28 

“  “  Gratiot ’s . .  .  50,000.00 


$2,173,508.03 

(See  H.  R.  313, 3d  Sess., 25th  Congress.)  This,  at 
the  time,  when  the  value  of  money  relatively 
was  so  much  greater  than  now,  was  a  vast, 
sum,  and  yet  it  embraces  but  a  third  of  the 
spoliation.  Other  departments  were  equally 
corrupt.  An  able  authority  state#  that 
“$6,000,000  were  actually  stolen”  at  a  time 
when  the  Democracy  was  denouncing  the 
annual  expenditures  of  $13,000,000  as  prodigi- 
I  ous — as  evidence  of  corruption,  extravagance 
and  fraud. 

fHarris  passed  into  Congress,  and  Boyd  was 
elected  to  the  Mississippi  Senate. 

J.  See  History  of  this  infamous  “Conspiracy’’ 
in  Coifcon’s  lAi c  of  Henry  Clay. 


15 


mittees,  faithfully  suppressing  all  proof  of 
tlieir  guilt!* 

TVere  not  this  original  corruption  and 
fraud — this  maladministration  and  malfeas¬ 
ance,  these  malpractices  faithfully  imitated 
and  enforced  through  all  their  several  ad¬ 
ministrations — Polk’s,  Pierce’s  and  Bu¬ 
chanan’  sf — up  to  the  latest  hour  of  Buchan¬ 
an’s,  the  last  hour  of  those  “last  six  years  of 
Democratic  rule,”  whose  final  scenes  closed 
in  wholesale  spoliation  of  the  Government 
as  a  climax  of  thirty  years  of  Democratic 
conspiracy  for  the  destruction  of  the  nation 
— in  a  rebellion  the  magnitude  and  revolting 
«rimes  of  which  have  no  parallel  in.  the  his¬ 
tory  )f  man  f 

Were  the  guilty  under  any  one  of  them 
punished?  Were  the  Denbies,  Beards, 
or  Collinses — the  Scotts,  Hewitts,  Ken- 
nerlies,  Wet  mores,  or  Swifts?  Was  Cor¬ 
nelius  W end  elL?  W as  any  of  the  pillaging 
hosts,  whose  corruptions  and  cximes  of 
every  character,  degree,  and  form,  despoil¬ 
ing  the  nation  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
and  millions,  indicting,  at  the  very  close  of 
those  “last  six  years  of  Democratic  rule,” 
as  in  the  beginning  under  Jackson  and 
Martin  Van  Buren,  in  addition  to  ‘  ‘a  great 
pecuniary  loss”  upon  the  country,  “deep 
humiliation  and  disgrace”  upon  “the  na¬ 
tional  character?” 

Did  any  fail  in  the  teachings  of  their 
early  faith — of  the  early  principles  and 
maxims  of  “the  party  “To  the  victors' 
belong  the  spoils?”  In  imitation  of  the* 
tyranny  of  the  “Hero”  “born  to  command,  ” 
to  rule  despotically  through  Executive 
usurpation  amid  the  min  and  sufferings  of 
the  people — such  tyranny  as  produced,  in 
1837,  in  three  weeks,  the  bankruptcy  in 
New  Y ork  of  ‘  ‘one  thousand  financiers,  mer- 

*  See  the  record  of  the  Garland  and  Wise 
Committees  of  1837. 

tfSays  Carroll :  “  The  aggregate  amount  of 
spoils  under  Pierce’s  administration  was 
$300,000,000  by  tfee  figures !”  That  is,  in  at¬ 
tempted  spoliation  by  the  Slave  Power  dur¬ 
ing  those  ‘Tast  six  years  of  Democratic  rule” 
— $120,000,000  in  compliance  with  the  demands 
of  the  notorious  Ostend  Conference,  held  by 
Buchanan,  Mason,  and  Slidell,  for  the  acqui¬ 
sition  of  Cuba,  and  which,  if  adopted  and 
forced  on  Spain,  would  have  involved  the 
nation  in  a  war  with  England,  France,  and 
Spain— ia  a  consequent  expenditure  of  untold 
millions  and  sacrifice  of  life ;  $20,000,000  for." 
the  Gadsden  purchase,  and  so  on,  in  kindred' 
ifrems— all  for  the  advancement  and  consoli¬ 
dation  of  the  Slave  Power— but  which  were 
greatly  curtailed,  or  absolutely  defeated,  by 
the  attitude  of  the  Republican  party ;  while 
■the  plunder  of  its  Washington  rings,  in  the 
building  of  the  wings  of  the  Capitol,  and 
similar  jobs,  has  only  a  parallel  in ».  nose  of 
Buchanan.— (See  Debate  in  Ho.  Of  Reps., 
May,  1856,  upon  Mb.  Ball’s  A  if  Ohio!  resolu¬ 
tions  to  investigate  some  of  these  jobs,  and 
the  Kept,  of  Covode  in  1860.) 


chants,  manufacturers,  and  ship-owners,” 
and  “forty  thousand  more  throughout  the 
country,”  entailing  upon  the  people  “a 
social  calamity  unparalleled:”  “the  wealthy 
fallen  to  penury;  widows  and  orphans,  left 
with  a  competency,  driven  to  want;  honest 
workingmen,  who  supported  tlieir  wives 
and  children  upon  their  daily  wages, 
thrown  out  of  employment;  the  savings  of 
years  swept  off  at  a  blow,  and  the  prospects 
of  many  ruined  forever”* — in  imitation  of 
such  heroism  and  at  the  command  of 
slavery,  did  they  not,  one  and  all — 
Polk,  Pierce,  and  Buchanan — amid  cor¬ 
rupt  malpractices  in  administration,  for¬ 
eign  wars  of  conquest  abroad  and  civil  war 
at  home — “border  ruffianism,”  supported 
by  the  military — establish  a  military  tyran¬ 
ny,  dragooning  our  cities,  arresting,  im¬ 
prisoning,  and  fining  our  citizens  by  mili¬ 
tary  process,  slaughtering  our  unoffending 
people,  and  staining  even  the  streets  of  the 
National  Capital  with  their  blood? 

And  did  not  all  this  frightful  maladmin¬ 
istration,  corruption,  and  tyranny  again 
characterize  Andrew  Johnson’s  attempted 
galvanizing  of  the  old  hulk  into  renewed 
plunder  and  crime  ? 

CONCLUSION. 

Thus  one  by  one,  after  its  own  manner, 
and  under  its  own  headings,  have  the 
slanderous  charges  and  inuendoes  of  this 
pamphlet  been  reviewed  and  exposed  in 
the  light  of  history  and  facts.  It  is  a  doc¬ 
ument  worffey  of  the  Democracy — a  party 
which,  for  thirty  years,  in  control  of  the 
Government,  striking  down  all  the  grand 
interests  of  the  nation — manufactures, 
agriculture  and  commerce — subordinating 
all  to  the  reign  of  slavery  and  the  success 
of  the  party,  and  the  one  as  a  means  to  the 
other  ;  inaugurating  at  its  origin,  under 
the  maxim,  “  To  the  victors  belong  the 
spoils a  system  of  appalling  eorrupticas. 
and  plunder  pursued  with  impunity,  rob¬ 
bing  the  nation  of  millions  upon  millions; 
held  together  throughout  its  long  reign,  as 
denounced  by  Calhoun,  only  “  by  the 
cohesive  power  ef  public  plunder,”  it  sub¬ 
sisted  by  defalcation,  fraaid,  vile  wars,  ex¬ 
ecutive  usurpations,  legislative  iniquity 
in  vile  acts  begotten  in  tyranny,  enacted 
in  corruption,  and  enforced  in  blood;  re¬ 
pudiating  the  consequences  of  its  crimes, 
charging  tlieir  burdens  »pon  its  oppo¬ 
nents  and  denouncing  them  before  the 
people,  and  closing  those  terrible  ‘  ‘last  six 
yeans  of  Democratic  rule’  ’  in  open  rebellion 
for  the  destruction  of  the  nation ! 


*  Carroll’s  Review ,  pp.  14,  L 5. 


A  Political  Science  Monthly  Magazine, 


In  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  the  Republic  will  advocate  an  honest  administra- 
tion  of  Government,  whether  municipal,  State,  or  National. 

It  will  favor  loyalty,  honesty,  economy,  and  personal  ability  as  pre-requisites  for 
office. 

It  will  give  credit  where  credit  is  due  ;  and  impartial  criticism  whenever  required. 

It  will  seek  to  hold  up  intelligence  as  the  safeguard  to  National  safety,  and  will 
defend  our  free  school  system  as  essential  to  its  preservation. 

It  will  advocate  improvements  that  experience  may  commend,  in  the  education  of 
the  young  ;  but  will  oppose  all  efforts  to  divide  the  public  school  funds,  or  to  intro¬ 
duce  into  the  schools  sectarian  influences. 

It  will  advocate  the  perpetuation  of  the  Republican  party  as  the  best,  if  not  the 
only,  means  to  secure  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and  the  impartial  execution  of 
the  laws. 

It  will  labor  earnestly  to  bring  about  such  reforms  as  the  spirit  of  progress  may 
demand,  and  in  all  things  seek  to  present  those  methods  of  administration  which 
the  wisdom  and  experience  of  a  century  have  confirmed . 

It  will  give  to  its  readers  a  clear  insight  into  the  various  branches  of  Government, 
by  a  faithful  record  of  their  doings. 

These  are  among  the  leading  features  of  the  work  to  which  the  Republic  is  de¬ 
voted.  It  pledges  anew  its  best  energies  to  make  the  Centennial  volumes  worthy 
the  Nation  it  serves  and  the  year  it  enters  upon. 

TERMS: 

The  Republic  is  a  magazine  of  sixty-four  pages,  published  monthly  at  $2  a  year, 
or  six  copies  for  $10.  The  postage  in  all  cases  will  be  paid  by  the  publishers. 
A  few  copies  of  the  back  volumes  may  yet  be  obtained,  either  bound  or  in  numbers. 
Remittances  should  be  made  by  postal  money-order  or  registered  letter. 


ADDRESS,  REPUBLIC  PUBLISHING  CONIPANY,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


LIST  OS’  DOCTJMEWTS : 

No.  1. — Growth  of  the  Nation  Under  Republican  Rule.  8  pp. 

No.  2. — Vaticanism  in  Germany  and  in  the  United  States.  8  pp. 

No.  3. — Can  the  Nation  Trust  the  Democratic  Party?  16  pp. 

No.  4. — Record  and  Platform  of  the  Democratic  Party.  Speech  by  Senator  Morton, 
at  Urbana,  Ohio,  August  7,  1875.  8  pp. 

No.  5 — The  National  Finances  and  the  Currency,  1875.  8  pp. 

No.  6. — High  and  Low  Tariffs  and  their  Effects.  4  pp. 

No.  7. — Our  Currency :  Its  Volume  and  character.  Also,  Taxes  :  Who  Pays 
them?  4  pp. 

No.  8. — Vaticanism  in  Germany  and  in  the  United  States.  (In  Gei'inan.)  8  pp. 

No.  9. — The  People  a  Nation.  8  pp. 

No.  10. — The  Southern  Question:  The  Conspiracy  to  Rule  or  Destroy  the  Nation. 

12  pp. 

No.  11. — Growth  of  the  Nation  Under  Republican  Rule.  (In  German.)  8  pp. 

No.  12. — Labor  and  Wages,  f  4  pp. 

*  Amnesty  Debate.  (Blaine,  Garfield  and  Hill.)  32  pp. 

^Senator  Morton’s  Speech  on  Mississippi.  24  pp. 

Rocord  of  the  Democratic  Speaker.  16  pp. 

f“Tlie  Bible  the  Security  of  American  Institutions.”  Sermon  by  Rev.  Dr.  Ran¬ 
kin.  8  pp. 

| “Religious  Liberty.”  Sermon  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  P.  Newman.  32  pp. 

“An  Irredeemable  Paper  Currency.”  Speech  by  Hon.  J.  G.  Blaine.  8  pp. 
"“Centennial  Celebration  of  American  Independence.”  Speech  by  Hon.  M. 
Townsend.  8  pp.  *■  ' 

•Senator  Gordon’s  Civil  Service  Reform.  (Debate  in  the  Senate.)  16  pp. 
'Belknap’s  Impeachment.  Escape  ©f  Witness  Marsh.  (Mr.  Bass’  speech  in  the 
House.)  8  pp. 


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be  distributed  through  the  mails  under  the  frank  of  Senators  or  Members. 

Of  those  marked  thus  I  our  supply  is  exhausted,  but  as  we  have  the  stereotype 

plates,  we  can  print  new  editions  if  necessary. 


’•  scnaing 


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J. 


M.  EDMUNDS,  Secretary. 


4 


